The Starlight Broadcast

by ponyfhtagn

Pt.1 - Chapter 12

Pa wasn’t getting better.

Ma had to spend most of each day caring for him. This left Maud in charge of all the work outside. Of course little fillies couldn’t do everything, which meant the bigger jobs were piling up. Cloudy Quartz had tried to swap with Maud at one point – leave Maud in charge of Pa so that Cloudy Quartz could take care of work on the fields – but Pinkie’s new temperament had left her almost unmanageable for her mother. Then Pinkie had run off and gotten lost for an afternoon, and when this kind of thing happened only Maud knew how to find her.

Maud had refused to leave the little ones after that. It was her cutiemark given destiny, after all, to watch over them and keep them safe. Especially Pinkie Pie.

Pinkie wasn’t doing very well either.

Oh sure, during the day she was fine and happy, if a little distracted and erratic. But at night she was prone to nightmare fits and shrieking. Maud had to bring Pinkie into her own bed to comfort her but also to make sure Pinkie didn’t run away.

Pinkie had wandered off in the night a few times already. Sometimes to other parts of the house to just sit and rock. Other times she had gotten far out into the rock fields before Maud had caught up with her.

Pinkie was getting to be a real hoof-ful. On the flipside, however, Limestone had become quite subdued since the incident with Holder’s Boulder. For better or for worse Maud couldn’t yet say. Limestone did not exactly seem unhappy, so much as she just seemed… unmotivated.

“Are you feeling okay?” Maud asked her that morning.

Limestone shrugged.

The sisters were out the front of the house waiting for Ma to come and give them instructions before she would have to return to caring for Pa.

“You seem glum,” Maud said.

Limestone shrugged again.

“Do you miss Holder’s Boulder?”

Limestone shrugged.

“Limestone, I can’t understand you when you’re so inexpressive.”

Limestone stood up and shuffled away.

“Don’t go too far,” Maud said. “Stay where I can see you.”

Limestone sharply kicked a rock and glared back at Maud.

“What does that mean?” Maud asked.

“It means leave me alone!” Limestone snapped. She went back inside and shut the door.

Okay… Sometimes Limestone was definitely unhappy.

“Maud, Maud, Maud,” Pinkie said, running up to her. Her eyes were wide and darting all about.

“What is it?” Maud asked, looking franticly about for Marble.

Marble was just sitting calmly by the door, of course.

“What’s wrong?” Maud asked Pinkie.

“The prophet comes to see us, in his cloak of lies long stolen from a riddled thing.” Pinkie turned to sneer over her shoulder. “He brings the music I cannot hear. She dances for him, so he thinks, but she dances too far from the flame. He comes to take me away, Maud. But I don’t hear the music anymore. Don’t let him take me dancing!”

“Okay, Pinkie,” Maud said, pulling her close. “I won’t let—”

Pinkie gasped. “He’s here.” She hid behind Maud’s legs. “He wants to see me laugh. Laugh to save the world! But I don’t laugh with strangers…”

“What’s she saying?” Marble whispered. “Is something bad going to happen?”

Maud squinted in the direction that Pinkie was cowering from. She could see the train going past in the far, far distance. Then she noticed two small shapes moving steadily towards the farm house.

“You two go inside,” Maud said.

Marble got up and opened the door. “Pinkamina?”

Pinkie didn’t budge. She clung to Maud’s leg and mumbled incoherently.

“Pinkie, go inside,” Maud said.

“Have to see him,” Pinkie whispered. “He won’t leave me in the dark, but I don’t like the fire anymore. The brightness consumes all. I must make him see the dark. The empty into which all things crawl now. Crawling from the star…”

Maud nodded at Marble and Marble went inside and shut the door.

“Come on then, Pinkie.”

Maud walked out to meet the strangers and Pinkie scuttled along behind her, keeping out of sight and stealing glances every other moment.

There was a long and delightfully awkward moment where each party could see the other but both were still too far away for words. Maud studied the approaching pair. A white unicorn filly with styled deep-purple mane and tail, and next to her a green earth pony colt with shorter light-purple mane and tail. Neither had a cutiemark, nor a chaperone. The colt was wearing a watch on one foreleg and the filly was wearing expensive saddlebags. They both looked nervous.

“Hello,” the unicorn said once they’d reached communication distance. “Nice, um, place you have here.”

The colt frowned at his companion. “Rarity…”

“What?” she whispered back.

The four ponies met together and stopped walking.

“I’m Rarity,” the unicorn said. “…hello. Oh, this is Spike.”

“You must be Maud,” Spike said. “I like the longer hair. It looks cool.”

“How do you know me?” Maud asked.

“Uh…” Spike stumbled.

“Oh,” Rarity cut in. “We’re here to see Pinkie Pie.”

Maud blinked at that. “…did you say Pinkie?”

“Uh. Yes,” Rarity answered.

Maud narrowed her eyes. “Her name is Pinkamina. Only I call her Pinkie.”

“Oh…” Rarity said. “Well, um—”

“How do you know Pinkie?” Maud asked, taking a step forward.

Then Spike noticed the little pink filly hiding behind her big sister’s tail.

“Hiya Pinkie,” he said, trying to get a better look at her. “Wow. You’re even fluffier than usual.”

Pinkie hissed and scuttled back from him. “I see you,” she muttered. “Pony, creature, liar. Which are you? Pony, creature, liar… Who, who, who?”

Spike straightened up again. “Um… Haha. I see you’ve still got that weird sense of humour, Pinkie Pie.”

“I don’t laugh for liars!” Pinkie snapped, wrapping Maud’s tail around herself.

“My sister doesn’t want to see you,” Maud said.

“What’s wrong with her?” Rarity asked.

“Nothing,” Maud said. “There’s nothing wrong with Pinkie. She’s…” Maud fixed her gaze on the interlopers. “She doesn’t want to see you. Please leave.”

“But… we kinda need to talk to her,” Spike said.

“She doesn’t want to see you,” Maud said.

The door to the farm house creaked in the background.

“Stay inside, Marble,” Maud called over her shoulder. “Oh…”

Cloudy Quartz approached the gathering with the wary expression of one whose lifestyle makes a stranger of the whole world.

“And who might you be who visit our humble farm?” Cloudy Quartz asked.

“I’m Rarity,” the unicorn said. “And this is Spike.”

“Are you here to purchase cobblestones?” Ma asked.

“Uh… no.”

“Flagstones? Ashlar? Stone bricks?”

“…no.”

“Crushed stone? Gravel mix—”

“They’re not here for stones, Ma,” Maud said. “They’re just—”

“Here looking for work!” Spike chimed in.

“Liar,” Pinkie whispered.

Cloudy Quartz deliberated on this for a moment, during which all were silent.

“It is true we could use more hooves,” Cloudy Quartz said. “Though you don’t strike me as sturdy miners nor rock farmers. This terrain is treacherous, and rocks are a stubborn crop.”

“Fascinating,” Rarity said. “Perhaps you would tell us more? Maybe over lunch?”

“Ma, they need to leave,” Maud insisted.

“You may be my eldest, Maud, but I do not recall ever hearing that you were in charge of this farm. Nor in charge of me,” Cloudy Quartz warned. “You mind your manners and your sisters. Take Pinkamina back to the house now, and fetch soup for our guests.”

Maud’s face betrayed no emotion. “Yes, Ma.”

Pinkie disentangled from Maud’s tail and shot off towards the farm house with Maud following stoically behind.

“What lovely girls you have there,” Rarity said.

“We try our best to raise them,” Cloud Quartz said. “If you would follow me we make sit and take lunch.”

Rarity and Spike fell into step behind the antiquated matron as she returned to the farm house. The guests were seated at the table and Maud poured them soup while the three little ones watched curiously from the shadows of the stairway.

“Thankyou, Maud,” Cloudy Quartz said. “Now take thy sisters and attend to the west field today. The stones there are too large for you, but you may find work in the culling of those weeds and brambles that have taken vial root in our fair soil.”

“Yes, Ma,” Maud said. She nodded to her sisters and they all filed out the back door.

Rarity and Spike sipped politely at the strange green soup, wondering if they should say something nice about the huge chunks of rock in their meal, or if maybe it would be better to not mention them at all.

“You say you are looking for work,” Cloudy Quartz spoke at last. “Yet I have four strong girls already. I can think of nothing for you that they cannot already handle. However, I find myself in need of a pony with kind bedside manner who may lift from me the burden of caring for my sick husband, Igneous.”

Rarity and Spike exchanged looks.

“Uh, sure…” Spike said. “I guess we could do that.”

Cloudy Quartz gave him a dismissive look and moved on to Rarity.

“He means of course we can,” Rarity said. “You poor dears. It’s no good when a family member is sick. We must nurse your husband back to health as soon as possible.”

Cloudy Quartz seemed satisfied with this response. “You show promise. We shall see. Come, we will take Igneous his breakfast. I will show you how to care for him.”

Cloudy Quartz went to gather more soup from the pot on the stove.

Rarity shrugged at Spike.

Spike nodded and motioned for her to go. He looked around the house and tapped himself in the chest.

Rarity winked.

“I’ll just wait here then?” Spike asked out loud.

“You may make yourself useful and sweep the floor,” Cloudy Quartz said. “I have no use for a housekeeper, but I do not believe in idle hooves. Wait for our return.”

Gee, Spike thought. Is this really the family that raised a Pinkie Pie?

Spike grabbed the broom and made a show of sweeping until Rarity and Cloudy Quartz were out of sight up the stairs. He heard an upstairs door open and then close. Spike set the broom against the wall and went to look out the kitchen window at where the fillies were pulling weeds.

“Liar,” said a voice.

Spike almost fell off the stool he was standing on. He climbed down and looked around until he spotted the tail of pink fluff under the kitchen table.

“How did—?” Spike started. He shook his head. “Nevermind. I almost forgot who I was dealing with.”

Spike crouched down on the floor and peered into the shadow.

“May I come in?”

Pinkie nodded.

Spike crawled under the table and sat. “Um. Hi. Wow, you really are a lot fluffier than usual. And… a lot weirder than usual, too.” Spike tried to chuckle. “Sorry. You must think I sound weird. Let me explain. I—”

“You seek the aimless ones,” Pinkie said, still frowning at him. “That they may dance to your script. But we are not aimless. We are changed. We do not fit the shapes you see. You walk like a pony but you do not fit the shape I see.”

Spike rubbed absentmindedly at his left arm. “Wh-what do you mean?”

Pinkie’s hoof shot out and jabbed him in the arm.

“Ow!” Spike cried, and there was a momentary flickering of green magic.

“Liar,” Pinkie snarled. “He comes to us with piping flute-song and dancing maiden, all sweets and her star-studded eyes, he lies. She rises like the lightness and they do not see what she eclipses, behind her radiance he lies. She is…”

Here Pinkie leaned closer, as if Spike were an open book and she need only turn the page.

“…the spider…”

Spike shivered.

“Her silver thread adorned with dew drops, she seeks to place herself among the stars. The prophet is blind to his own shadow. He leaves a wake of puzzle shards each time he sheds his skin. He will not trap the laughing one,” Pinkie said. “She who laughs in the darkness, so in the light she cannot see. Do not drag us to the light. I will not bow to your broken harmony!”

“Okay. Calm down,” Spike urged her. “No light. It’s okay.”

“Lair,” Pinkie sneered again, and again she jabbed him in the armband.

Another green flicker. “Stop it!” Spike insisted.

It was clear that Pinkie was not fooled by his disguise but Spike couldn’t fathom how she had known or why she didn’t even seem to care beyond casual disapproval.

“It does not stop,” Pinkie said. “It goes on and on and on. There is no station for this journey. The train tracks were built atop the flattened forest of their beginning. They run from time unknowable to time unthinkable. Don’t look at the shape of the plaything. Don’t get lost where they made their playground. Pain is a—crisscross, crisscross, crisscross—”

“Pinkie, what’s wrong with you?” Spike asked.

“—crisscross, crisscross,” Pinkie went on. “Still he does not understand. Still he is blinded by the light of his own river. I will show him. Show him, show him, show him the dark.”

Pinkie flipped her ears up and down, as if she were listening for something that buzzed around her head. Spike’s eyes landed on the left notched ear and he bit his lip at the sight of it.

“The dark is all around…” Pinkie whispered slowly now. “The light touched everything and bore the fleeing shadows. Flash-boom! And he was there…”

“The… Starburst Event?” Spike said, still fixated on Pinkie’s twitching ears.

“His eyes are filled with memory of light. But the light is born of lies. He swims now with lies and he becomes the lie. Turn away from the light. She is not the answer. Nor she who returns. Seek for the negative—she will draw her shadow back.”

“Who?” Spike said. “What are you saying?”

“When all are turned away,” Pinkie said. “He seeks the one he cannot trust. The doubtful path becomes the only certainty. Only the empty ones can help him end it now. Ponies of gold will not tarnish the flame. He swims against the river and wonders why he cannot find smooth mirrors in the crashing torrents. Struggle too long and he will break upon the rocks. The rocks have their own design. Leave them be as they are stone. Let all true treasures now be stone.”

“But…” Spike said, trying to make sense of it all. “Wait… Stone. Treasures? Are you talking about the Elements of Harmony? But if I abandon the Elements then what about Nightmare Moon? Discord? Sombra? Queen Chr—”

“The moments are already becoming,” Pinkie said. “The Prince of Chaos laughs also. He sees how far the light has spread and where its touch has burned. It burned him, too, and he laughs at the secretive sun, for she is the God of Sand. Counting, counting, counting… Sand does not become her and yet she fears its future drought.” Pinkie let out a little cackle. “Bury the night with the yawning mouth. The shadow-hearts flee before her madness—she is the wrath of dreams unborn. She is the whirlwind returned to the whisperer. Red guilt is our undoing. Sand, sand, sand…

“The Riddled Queen is watching now. The stars screamed aloud at distant space and woke a thousand eyes. Of all the pieces she is free—the Queen of Lies—she does not move along the river. She strikes from the bank between the reeds. The black queen with a thousand spawn! She bends the shape of fate as freely as she bends her own. Beware a frozen heart!”

Pinkie’s ears fell flat and she was left staring wide-eyed at nothingness.

Spike shook his head to clear it. “Pinkie—”

“Why are you here to visit me?” She turned to glare at him.

Spike blinked. “N-now? We’re talking about now?”

“If now is where you are,” Pinkie said. “You could have been elsewhere—could still—but that’s the common last—what a mess. But sooner or later—Pinkie. The answer is always the same from me, so give me the question and we can move again. Move it!” Pinkie demanded, jabbing Spike in the arm once more.

“Ow,” Spike complained as his image flashed green again. “Okay, okay.”

Spike peered out from under the table to check that the coast was still clear. Then he sat back in his place and took down the changeling image of the green and purple colt. He waited for Pinkie’s reaction. She did not give it.

“Okay. I… came here,” Spike began. “Because of an accident. I got stuck here and I’m just trying to make things right again. And I want you to help me. You were supposed to have a destiny. You are the element of laughter and your cutiemark is three balloons because you’re also a professional party pony. The best. Hooves down.”

Pinkie continued to glare. “Nooo… Tell why you are here.”

Spike blinked and tried again. “I came to see you. Bad things are coming. You’re supposed to help stop them. But we messed all that up. Me and… some other ponies. Don’t you want to help put things right again?”

Pinkie’s glare deepened and she grit her teeth as she spoke. “No. Don’t tell me. I already heard it—already know it. Tell the one who doesn’t know. Tell you. Why why? Why here? Why now? Tell it! Tell it now!”

“I don’t know what you want!”

“Tell Pinkie why you're here!”

“Because I didn’t want to go to Canterlot!” Spike shouted at last.

The echo rang its last before he spoke again.

“And…” Spike huffed. “…and because Rarity wanted to.”

Pinkie folded her forelegs across her chest. “He thinks he can choose these things. Which to go, when to be, what to happen all together. He chooses nothing. He follows her, and her, and himself-not-self. He can’t control the other pieces—only his own raft, and only if he is alone. Pinkie understands this already—I learned to swim.”

“…so… Do you want to help or not?” Spike huffed. “You seem to already know who I am. Who you are. What’s at stake. I’m willing to just chalk most of that up to you being, well, Pinkie.” Spike sighed. “But I know you’re different. I have to remember that, I know. And I’ll give you your space if you want me to, but I have to ask you… Will you help us? Will you be an Element of Harmony?”

Pinkie lowered her body closer to the ground, like a stalking cat. “Blinded by the light. Deafened by its shriek. He runs in circles chasing a cautionary tale. Don’t you listen? Don’t you learn?” Pinkie unfurled her tail and adjusted her angle. “Pinkie has already chosen.”

Spike gasped at the sudden revelation of her new cutiemark. The image of many eyes all staring out at the world—staring at Spike—staring through him. He felt his heart sink to the floor while what fragments of mind had been left to his reason now scrabbled frantically with no direction.

“That’s not…” Spike began. “You’re not supposed to…”

The backdoor to the house banged open and Maud started calling. “Pinkie?”

Spike fumbled to get his disguise-image back up. A flash of green light and it was done, but when he looked back he found that Pinkie was gone.

“Pinkie?” Maud called again.

Spike climbed out from under the table and grabbed up the broom.

Maud walked into the kitchen area and eyed him suspiciously.

Then they both heard banging and yelling from upstairs.

“Pinkamina!” Cloudy Quartz was scolding.

“She is the channel of regret! She is the fault in the fissure!” Pinkie was shouting. “She is the vulture of sand! Vulture! Touch not with your siren song!”

“Pinkamina!” Cloudy Quartz said even louder this time.

Maud raced upstairs. Spike just put his head down and kept sweeping, trying to stop from physically shaking. A few seconds later Rarity came back downstairs in a hurry.

“That’s it. We’re leaving,” she said. “Spike.”

It took him a moment to remember how to release the broom from his forelegs.

“Spike!” Rarity called again.

“C-coming,” Spike muttered, shuffling out to meet her at the front door.

“I must apologise,” Cloudy Quartz was saying as she came down the stairs.

“No need,” Rarity huffed. “Clearly you get on better by yourselves. Goodbye.”

She practically dragged Spike out the front door. He smelled soup and noticed that Rarity’s hooves were splashed with it.

The front door swung shut and left a heavy silence in its wake.

Cloudy Quartz returned upstairs with a cloth and began to mop up the spilled soup.

“Ma,” Maud began, sheltering her pink sister behind her tail again.

“Not now,” Cloudy Quartz said. “Go outside and try to have something productive done before dinner. Go.”

Maud turned to Pinkie and nudged her back down the stairs.

“They won’t come back,” Pinkie whispered. “I’m safe now. I made him see the dark. I left cracks in her façade.”

“You made a mess,” Maud whispered back. “And you were rude to our visitors.”

“Spreading, spilling, soaking through…” Pinkie was muttering now.

“Don’t leave my sight again,” Maud warned, ushering Pinkie out the back door.

Pinkie walked a few steps before she gradually collapsed down on her front in the dirt and clutched at her fluffy pink head. “Owie… Owie…” she moaned.

“What?” Maud asked, lowering her head to Pinkie’s level. “Where does it hurt?”

“What is that thing?” Pinkie gasped, staring at nothing. “Owie… Owie, owie, owww. No… I only made it stronger. Canterlot wasn’t the answer at all. The power to choose is the power to choose wrong. The Neverwas runs to the spiral’s playroom—the limitless radiance becomes the thread, the web, the connection to false answers—the hungry centre deceives us all! I betrayed myself and brought it conflict to consume. I didn’t see! I didn’t see how it was laughing at me.”