The Last Party: A Eulogy For Laughter

by No one is home

You Can Never Go Home

After everything that happened in the human world… I think a part of me was glad that my world was gone. It’s terrible, but sometimes I’m glad I never had to face my friends again. It wasn’t like my world was dead, it’s hard to even say it broke. There weren’t even any pieces left. There was just a blank space in a whole line of Equestria’s. My world just wasn’t there. Because the whole world can just go away. And then it’s just not there anymore. So I picked another one. I just reached out to the closest Equestria and fell into it. I don’t really even know when I turned green. Just one more surprise. So many surprises. The name just fit. I couldn’t be Pinkie Pie anymore, that was obvious. The whole universe seemed to agree with that. I wasn’t even pink anymore.

I spent the first few days hiding. I didn’t want to see any of the girls. I was scared of what might happen if I ran into this world’s Pinkie Pie. I kept thinking of Charlie, how he was always afraid the universe would break or worse, just go away. And he was right. And now my world was gone. And so was Charlie. And so was the cute changeling who was totally perfect for Charlie. And was it wrong that I was still jealous? I thought maybe if I had just listened, if I had just believed in the spoilers… and I knew that there was another Charlie on this world. There had to be. There was another Pinkie Pie. There was another Twilight, even if she wasn’t with Ambassador Silver, there was another Ambassador Silver… and he still had two foals on the way, they were even both from the same mommy.

I didn’t think Silver would recognize me, why would he? He might know this worlds Pinkie but there was no way he could know me. Except that he did. Because my world really was just a dream. And it didn’t end because I left. It ended because it was a dream. And somehow I had escaped. And Silver knew where I had been, even if he didn’t know what I had done. And he knew I was sick, and that I needed a doctor. So he took me to the hospital. The doctors did their very best. There was a lot of doctor talk I didn’t understand, but I understood the important parts, like how I was “no longer contagious”, and the part that should have made me really sad, and really scared, when they talked about how “the damage had already been done”. And there were lots of words I didn’t understand, and one big nasty word I totally understood, “cancer”.

I should have been afraid. Heck I should have been scared silly. I should have, but I wasn’t. I felt… at peace. I even started going around the hospital and doing what I had always been best at, making ponies smile. And I was happy. I was bringing happiness and laughter to ponies who really needed it and sometimes I almost felt like I was still Pinkie Pie. And that’s when I found them. That’s when I found Charlie and Z-978. That wasn’t her name, of course. It was the employee number on her name tag. Nurse Zilia wasn’t her name either, of course, but I didn’t know that. What I did know was here was that changeling. Here was that changeling who loved my Charlie. And there he was, floating in a changeling pod. In the end he was right about everything, and he was never allowed to wake up. He had been hit by a train. Princess Luna had put him in an endless dream to ease his pain.

My world, Silver’s dream, was just one dream within a series of dreams he would never wake up from. The changelings of Fast Change’s hive had donated a few pods to the Canterlot Hospital, and that’s what was keeping him alive. Silver had simply glimpsed the world dream. I remembered how he would curl up against me some nights and confess how he had seen the world end over and over. How the princess would never let him die. And it was all true. And my Charlie was in hell. And he would never escape. Should I have said something? Was the dream any kind of real mercy? But Nurse Zilia said he could tell we were there. She said he still felt hope and love. All he would ever feel if he woke up would be confusion and pain. As horrible as my twisted version of Equestria could be, he could be happy there, I had seen it. The doctor said it was only a matter of weeks at most, in any case. Even full transformation wasn’t an option, given the amount of damage his body had sustained there was no way he would survive the process.

I didn’t go to his funeral. I should have, but I couldn’t bring myself to see him in box. They were going to put Charlie, my dear, sweet, broken Charlie, in the ground. I couldn’t face that. I kept thinking about all the impossible plans I had made. I talked to Celestia a lot. She was a lot nicer than Celestia in my world. I told her about my old plans to run away with a special human and open a bakery, and she thought it might be sweet to follow that old dream. I couldn’t ever have Charlie back, the bakery would be my memorial. The dream the nightmare kept from us would be something wonderful in the real world. “Just Deserts”, a bakery that sold every type of cupcake. And there wasn’t going to be a special human to serve the cupcakes, but it was still as much his as it was mine.

And I was finally able to face myself… this world's version of myself I mean. And we threw a super big Pinkie/Surprise party, and later we talked, and she told me about something she had done when the changelings invaded Canterlot, and she told me it was okay. Even good ponies make mistakes. What was important was that you had to keep moving. You had to keeping making ponies happy, and making ponies laugh. Because you can’t erase your mistakes. You can’t undo the hurt you caused, so you have to just keep on making the world a better place. And I had done that. I had never quit doing that, and I never would, and Pinkie Pie wasn’t ashamed of me, she was proud that I was a version of her that held laughter against the corruption of the nightmare. And I felt like maybe if Pinkie Pie could forgive me, maybe Charlie could to. Sometimes I could almost imagine that he was somehow going to walk through that door, and we’d cry, and we’d laugh, and life would be able to go on again.

Comments

[Not so New Brony]

they were just both from the same mommy

remove 'just' or replace it with 'even'

He had been by a train

been hit

would ever fell

feel

twisted version of equestria

Equestria.

So Just Desserts was a memorial for her Charlie...the bakery burning down now feels a lot more sad and meaningful than before. And the thing that took Surprise was cancer. I always thought it was something obscure but to be taken down by the dragon...damn.

[No one is home]

7631005 Typos buried in a forgotten grave. The story gets a little more upbeat after this, I like to think, anyway. Even if we all know how it ends.

[David Silver]

The plot thickens, much like the mood. The past clears.