Artsy Colors and The Magic Paint Brush

by AstraPony

Colors of a Fading Rainbow

Darkness

It's all dark

No color, no joy, no life

Except me. Why me? What makes me so special? I'm not special. So why must it be ME?!?

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"WAKE UP!!"

My eyes flash open. A blinding light is shining in my face so I am forced to squint. As my eyes adjust to the light, I remember I'm outside. Under a tree, to be specific. The dark green leaves provide shade from the blazing sun, but (apparently) not for my light green eyes.

"Hello! Equestria to Artsy!"

I focus on the source of the noice that is in front of me. No wonder I didn't notice her, her coat perfectly matches the sky. Rainbow Dash stood directly in front of me. Then again, how did I not notice a full grown mare with her muzzle mere inches from my face? A question for another time.

"Oh, uh, hey Rainbow! What's up?"

"What do you mean 'what's up'? I thought we were going for a cupcake at Sugarcube Corner!"

"We still are! I just was waiting for you to get here and fell asleep. And you can't blame me, you nap all the time!"

"Oh hay! Don't go pointing hooves!"

"Ok, ok. But can you get off me?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry."

Rainbow backed off me then proceeded to begin to fly. The walk back to town would be slow by Rainbow's standards, seeing that I'm an Earth Pony. While Rainbow Dash complained about how slow I was going, I was enjoying the scenery around us, how the sun bathed my creme coat in warm rays, and how the wind was rustling my color-filled mane.

On the way to Sugarcube Corner, we had passed Flower Fly's Floral Arrangements. And if I had paid attention, I would have noticed all the red flowers had started to fade in color. And so was everything else that had been red.

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Rainbow Dash and I finally arrived at Sugarcube Corner. It wasn't extremely busy that day so the little bell on the door sounded like a canon be fired in a cave. As quick as a bunny, Pinkie was at the front counter.

"Hiya! How are you two on this BBEEAAAUUTTTIIIFFFUUULLL day?" Pinkie Pie greeted.

"Hi Pinkie! We're fine." Rainbow said. "Can we get our usual?"

"Sure thing! Back in a jif!" And just in the matter of seconds, Pinkie was back with their order. Rainbow Dash's order was a chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing (only the best) while mine was a vanilla cupcake with pink icing and sprinkles (I like my colors, I am a painter after all).

Sure enough, once Rainbow got her cupcake she dug in. But something didn't seem right with mine. It was the icing. It wasn't as... bright? "Hmm..."

"I everything ok, Artsy?" Pinkie asked.

"I don't know. It's the icing. It doesn't seem as bright." I stated.

"Whatever, it's icing." Rainbow interjected.

"No, it's off. Pinkie always makes the icing a certain shade, I would know, but it's not. It just seems so... dull."

"Huh! Your right. And I was certain the batch was the normal color when I made it earlier!"

"Yeah..." And that's when I saw it. Pinkie's color was faded as well... and slowly fading more. "Uh... Pinkie?"

"Yes?"

"Do you feel ok?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You don't look as bright."

"Wait a minute." Pinkie then rushed into the other room and came back with a full body mirror. She let out a big gasp "Oh. My. Celestia. Your right! Maybe it's the lighting?"

"And your mane doesn't seem to be as... poofy." I pointed out

When I pointed that out, she proceeded to try to 'inflat' herself, but to no avail.

"Pinkie!" Rainbow yelled.

"What?" Pinkie replied, her tone becoming duller.

"Your cutie mark!"

Pinkie looked in the mirror and what she saw rocked her to her bones. Like her color, Pinkie's cutie mark was fading AWAY, as if she never had it.

"Oh." Pinkie said, her mane had become flatter, almost like it was before she got her now-fading cutie mark. Her voice was also EVEN MORE dull. "Ok."

"WE NEED TO FIND TWILIGHT!!!" Rainbow Dash and I shouted in unison.

"Ok..."

As we exited, I swiftly turned the open sign to closed. As we raced through the streets of Ponyville towards Twilight's castle, I noticed something worrying. "Rainbow! Your red streaks in your mane has faded!"

"Oh, no!" She cried.

Everywhere we went with Pinkie Pie, we left a wake of sadness. I could feel it. At that moment, I knew her cutie mark had disappeared entirely.

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I had run ahead of the two mares. As the front doors of the castle neared closer I sped up to get a running start. I was 1 foot away when I did one of those ninja jump kicks. The doors flew wide open from the kick. I'm pretty sure the force was so strong that it may have left some cracks in the crystalized walls.

"TWILIGHT!!!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. To bad I was still running from the momentum of that kick because Twilight teleported in front of me and I couldn't slow down in time. You can guess what happened after that.

After getting back up and Rainbow and Pinkie entered the room, Twilight asked, "What in the HAY is the mat-" then she saw Pinkie. "What happened?!?!" Then we explained it all, the cupcakes, the fading, the cutie mark, and Rainbow's red streaks fading as well.

"Twilight, have you noticed any things fading?" I asked.

"Um, no. I don't think so."

"Wait!" Rainbow Dash interrupted. "Weren't there some red lights hanging in the map room?"

"Yeah! There was! Let's check."

We galloped to the room and, sure enough, the red crystals were gray. But there was something else in here that shocked us all (except Pinkie, she's kinda emotionless). What we noticed was that Pinkie cutie mark on her chair had faded. But what had really surprised us all (even Pinkie) has the map was displaying MY cutie mark.

Comments

[pabrony]

Just a tad confused. Is Artsy a foal? Just wondering due to the line:

Then again, how did I not notice a full grown mare with her muzzle mere inches from my face?

[AstraPony]

No, she isn't. Artsy is a mare. It was just expressing how silly it was to not notice Rainbow Dash :)