The Cure for Pain
Hazel was already up when Fluttershy came to. She didn’t think he had gotten any sleep, but she didn’t draw attention to that. He was making breakfast, so she sat down politely at the dinner table and smiled.
“I’m making ham and pancakes,” he said, lethargically. “That okay?”
“Pancakes, yeah. But… ham?” She twisted her head. “What’s ham?”
“…Processed pig meat?”
Fluttershy blinked. “You eat meat?”
“Uh, yeah?”
Fluttershy pondered this. “Ponies are herbivores though.”
“We are?”
“I…” Fluttershy shook her head. “I guess we aren’t in this world. I am though. I think I’ll just take the pancakes.”
Hazel nodded. “Is eating animals something… evil in your world?”
“Huh? I… well, it’s just not done. We raise animals for byproducts, fur, eggs, that sort of thing. I guess we use the meat for our pets and to lure out monsters.”
“Ah yes, world of monsters. You seem like something right out of an anime.”
“Is that another book?”
Hazel shook his head. “It’s something you make and put on the TV. Draw a bunch of pictures and make it look like it’s moving.”
“Huh. That sounds fun.”
Hazel set out three plates – though the third one had tin foil on it, keeping it warm. Hazel had both pancakes and strange pink cubes Fluttershy decided was ham, while she only had pancakes. They started eating.
“…I wonder if I really am from one of those ‘anime’ things.” Fluttershy mused, taking out a piece of the pancake and munching on it. “If the Blue Bolt was from a book, well…”
“I wouldn’t know. Nothing else you described to me sounded exactly like something I’d read before, besides New Alice City. But there were a lot of familiar things… the idea of a space queen, or a monster hunter. Those are decently common ideas that don’t exist here.”
“Hmm…” Fluttershy furrowed her brow. “I wonder if all stories exist. Even those I learned in my home.”
“We can’t really know, can we?”
“Rainbow probably knows. I’ll have to ask her when she arrives. She’s seen a lot.”
Hazel frowned. “Why wouldn’t she say anything, though?”
“I can’t imagine the conversation ‘you exist in a book somewhere’ going over well.”
“Ah…”
Fluttershy tossed her mane back. “Enough of that. Why don’t you tell me about yourself and Pinkie?”
“I’m a politician stuck between a rock and a hard place in a world filled with liars and stallions who want nothing more than power.” Hazel sighed, clearly not wanting to dwell on his situation. “Pinkie is an author. She writes stories filled with smiles, positivity, and optimism in the face of ridiculous darkness. It’s her way of telling the world that things can look bad and still be full of life.”
“That’s beautiful.”
“…She thinks she’s responsible for creating the horrible place of New Alice City.” Hazel shook his head. “It was intended to be an exaggerated illustration that would resonate with ponies. Not… a real place.”
“There’s no way she could have known. She can’t be blamed.”
“Shouldn’t. That doesn’t stop her.” He looked up the stairs with a forlorn expression.
“Then we’re just going to have to be there for her.” Fluttershy brightened considerably. “When she comes down, we’ll let her know we don’t blame her for anything.”
“It’s a start.”
“When do you think she’ll be down, anyway?”
“That mare doesn’t even have a sleep schedule under normal circumstances.” Hazel let out a short laugh. “For all I know she’ll be up there until night falls again.”
“Or I’ll be up right now!”
Fluttershy and Hazel turned in shock to see Pinkie trotting down the stairs.
Smiling brightly.
A sinking feeling came over Fluttershy.
“Pinkie…?” Hazel said, uncertain.
“Yep! It’s me. Had a good night’s sleep and now I’m good to go!”
“Pinkie… you just watched a pony…” Hazel bit back his words. “You know bottling it behind your smile isn’t healthy.”
“No, I’m serious! I’m really fine! A good night’s sleep and everything’s a-okay!” She gave a mock salute. “I was manipulated, and I should have known better. It’s both okay and not okay. Like so many other things in life, right? And yeah, looks like my books have power. But that could help us! This is a good thing!”
Hazel stared at her in disbelief. “I… you… you’ve been blessed with strength. It’s a miracle!”
Pinkie’s smile faltered at that. “Uh…”
Fluttershy narrowed her eyes. “Pinkie. What did you do last night?”
“Well, uh, see I slept! And then… yeah, I don’t know what I’m bothering with, I figured you’d be able to figure it out.”
“You fixed yourself with your words, didn’t you?”
Hazel’s mouth opened into an ‘O’.
“Now, Hazel!” Pinkie shook her head. “It’s not like that! Or, well, maybe it is…” She tapped her chin. “But yeah, Fluttershy’s right. I totally wrote all my problems away. Grabbed a notebook and a pen, scribbled everything away. Surprisingly easy.”
“Did you meditate on this at all?” Hazel asked, haunted.
“Um… not exactly. I just decided I didn’t want to hurt anymore, so I made the cure for pain. Oooh, that’s a good chapter title…”
“Pinkie!” Fluttershy shouted, grabbing her attention. “You didn’t think this through.”
Pinkie shook her head with a laugh. “Nope! It was all ‘my name is Pinkie Acorn…’ few sentences later I knew I’d wake up without a problem. Which is good for everypony! Hazel doesn’t have to worry about my mind, and we can go save the world! Right?”
“Right…” Fluttershy said. “But also wrong. You can’t just… wave a hoof and change your mind.”
“Just did.”
“And it can’t be healthy for your relationships?”
“Hazel’s the only one who knows enough about this to really be affected, and he’ll never go anywhere. Plus, I could always write again if I needed t-“
“Don’t!” Fluttershy rammed her hoof into the table. “You will change yourself until you go mad!”
Pinkie sighed. “Look, what’s done is done. I’m happy, and we can skip over all that boring melodramatic depression I was sinking into. It really is better this way.”
“I’m not letting this go, Pinkie. This… this is wrong. Hazel?”
Hazel nodded. “I… I agree with her. We need to learn things from our suffering.”
“But I did learn stuff, I wrote it into my head a- ugh, nevermind.” Pinkie rolled her eyes. “Clearly you’re not ready to accept this.”
“You don’t get to just roll your eyes,” Fluttershy said. “This is serious, you don’t get t-“
“Hey, Fluttershy,” Pinkie interrupted. “I found this old thing in my folders last night. Take a read, why don’t you?” She handed a paper to Fluttershy. Fluttershy would have discarded it, but the title grabbed her attention.
The Legend of Saturn
P. D. Pie.
Fluttershy was suddenly lost in a perfect rendition of the legend of the goddess Saturn, the figure she had revered throughout her life. The story was just as she remembered it – a goddess of battle and valor among the gods. When the king of monsters sent his plague upon the earth, she alone decided she would face him – even though the other gods and their prophecies warned her she would fall. She fought anyway and was defeated…
But after the defeat, the legend took a different turn.
She was not truly dead, for a goddess’ essence is a powerful thing. She limped back to the heavens, weak, falling before the feet of her brothers and sisters.
“I warned you,” Uranus said, face pained.
“Please… restore me so I may return…”
“NO!” Jupiter shouted, slamming his hands together. “You will not return. Your attack stoked his anger, and the retaliation against the heavens was devastating. We will not risk such a thing happening again.”
Saturn nodded in understanding. “Then I shall live among the mortals.”
“You’re right. You will. But you will not be permitted to fight.”
“What?”
“Your spirit will be spread to the four corners of the world, where you will be able to take no action. One day, your soul may find its way to a mortal. But the mortal you inhabit will be cursed to never fight. You will never face the king of monsters again.”
And with that, Saturn was banished to the four corners of the earth. Some say she is still spread out, lost, confused, and unable to do anything. Others say she has found her way to a mortal shell, eternally lamenting that she cannot complete that which she has left unfinished.
Fluttershy dropped the legend. All thoughts of what Pinkie had done to herself were gone, replaced with a deep-seated understanding. She trembled, and tears rolled down her face – but her expression was blank.
Looking up, she saw a small, faint halo over her head.
~~~
Rarity knocked on the door of P. D. Pie’s house. Twilight had confirmed Fluttershy was in there, but Rarity had convinced her it would be best not to just teleport in randomly.
Almost instantly, Pinkie opened the door, a smile on her face. “Oh, girls, you made it!”
“…Pinkie?” Applejack said, taken aback by her cheeriness.
“Wow, Rarity, you look good!” Pinkie commented, ignoring the earlier comment.
Rarity smirked despite herself. “Thanks.”
Pinkie coughed. “Anyway… come on in, Fluttershy needs to see you.”
Rarity’s smirk vanished. “Is she okay?”
“…Ish.”
The four ponies trotted into the house. Pinkie led them to the dining room where Fluttershy was curled up in a chair, crying silently. She looked so vulnerable and helpless without her armor, despite her well-toned muscles. Her eyes were locked wide open in shock, unblinking, looking at the small halo above her head.
“…Your magic feels different…” Twilight walked up to Fluttershy and cocked her head. “What…?”
Fluttershy didn’t answer – it was Pinkie. “We found something. Turns out, Fluttershy’s part goddess of war, cursed never to fight.”
“Wait, seriously?!” Rainbow gawked. “That… okay, that explains one thing and opens up a whole new can of unanswered questions!”
Rarity walked up to Fluttershy and held a hoof to her face. “Hey… it’s a curse, it’s a condition. Does it really matter?”
“I…” She shuddered. “They doomed us…”
“I don’t think she’s upset about herself,” Pinkie said, leaning in. “I think she’s upset that the gods of her world don’t care about her and her fellow ponies.”
“They’re morons,” Twilight said. “I can confirm. Absolute pieces of trash.”
“Weren’t you just being arrogant?” Applejack asked.
“Both can be true.”
Rarity forced Fluttershy to look at her. “You are strong enough on your own. Who cares about the pa-“
“ENOUGH!” Hazel shouted. “Pinkie, I’m not letting you do this!”
Pinkie looked at him with a frown. “Hazel… please calm down, Fluttershy’s in a difficult spot and we need to be there for her.”
“Yeah, dude, chill,” Rainbow said, huffing. “We can deal with whate-“
Hazel threw a book into Rainbow’s face.
Pinkie tried to swipe the tome away. “We don’t need to look at that right n-“
With a flap of her wing, Rainbow created a small gust of wind that tore the book out of Pinkie’s grip and planted it on the table in front of everyone.
The Gaze of the Moon. The Blue Bolt, the moon, New Alice City… by P. D. Pie.
“…What does this mean?” Rarity asked Pinkie.
Pinkie was glaring at Hazel. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I… I said it needed to go differently. I…”
“You’re a Prophet,” Rainbow said.
Pinkie looked right at her. “You know what this is?”
“Yeah. I do. Sorta.” She sighed.
“Then I want an explanation,” Hazel said, leg trembling. “I want to know why my wife came home certain she was responsible for killing a pony. I want to know why she has been writing about New Alice City for years and then could suddenly go there. I want to know why, in the middle of the night, she wrote some things down and woke up like everything was fine!”
Rainbow paled. “She… she altered herself!?”
“Why is that such a big deal!?” Pinkie shouted. “I was going to be completely useless like that! No help to anypony! Now I’m up, about, and helping ponies figure out who they are. We should be helping Fluttershy!”
“N-no…” Fluttershy said, biting her lip. “You…”
“Fluttershy, you’re supposed to b-“
“I am not a character in one of your stories!” Fluttershy shouted, getting out of her chair with enough force to break it. “I don’t care what you ‘wrote’ about me so I could ‘learn who I am’! I am my own person!”
Pinkie recoiled. “This… none of this was supposed to happen!”
“Prophet powers are not absolute,” Rainbow explained. “The Tower still expects things to follow a story in most cases, and if you’re flying in the face of the story, you get stopped.”
“Excuse me, what? Tower?” Twilight waved a hoof. “Explanation?”
Rainbow took a deep breath. “Okay, right, fine. Back in the way way way stupid unimaginably deep past, there were a group of people who decided existence was meaningless. But they liked the meaning they found in their stories – heroes, villains, that sort of thing. So they built the Dark Tower, the structure at the center of existence that manipulates events across the multiverse through the force of ka, ensuring everything is part of a story in one way or another.”
Rainbow pointed a hoof at Pinkie. “You are one of the authors the Tower has selected – completely randomly – to become a Prophet. A pony who writes stuff that is used to define the stories of other worlds. Almost every Prophet in existence has no idea they’re a Prophet and just write whatever they feel like, oblivious to what they’re creating elsewhere. That is not you anymore.”
“Yeah. And I was tricked,” Pinkie said. “Got Blue Bolt killed and everything.”
The nonchalance with which she says that... Rarity shuddered.
Rainbow put a hoof to her head. “Pinkie, you’ve got great power. And you have to use it very, very responsibly.”
“So why aren’t you happy? I got rid of my depressive funk!” She smiled brightly. “Now I won’t go writing things just because I feel emotionally inclined to. I’ll be able to think it through and analyze the situation! I can probably help us with saving the worlds!”
“Yeah, well y-“ Rainbow’s mind reset. “Mother of Celestia, she’s right.”
“…What!?” Hazel shouted.
“She’s much more useful like this. She… she might be able to manipulate events to create a new prophecy to replace the Elements of Harmony. I don’t think Bolt could be revived, but if she’s careful to keep the plot running right, she could just… write us to victory.” Rainbow bit her lip. “I… I don’t like it either. What she did was wrong. But… but it might turn out well for us.”
“Why do you all think it’s wrong?” Applejack asked.
“Thank you, Applejack,” Pinkie said, rolling her eyes.
Everypony else stared at Applejack like she was insane.
Applejack sighed. “Look, something was wrong with her – she knew she wasn’t in a good place, and that it’d hurt everypony else. So she used the tools at her disposal to fix the problem in the most efficient way possible.”
“Down that path lies madness,” Rarity muttered.
Pinkie looked at her. “What?”
“Just smile and nod,” Rarity said, taking a few aggressive steps toward Pinkie. “Pretend that everything’s fine. Laugh and run down the streets as the crops die around you. Sit happily in your palace. Feels nice up there, doesn’t it?”
“Rarity what a-“
Rarity slapped Pinkie, knocking the mare to her rump. “It’s not happy, Pinkie. By doing this, you have not only lost perspective, but you’re insulting the rest of us. We’re grieving, we’re lost, we’re confused. And you? You’re insulting.”
“Would you rather I have written a story about a murderous rampage to get this out? Huh? Or created a world where sorrow is literally manifested by piranhas or something!?”
“You should have written nothing.”
Pinkie twitched. “I couldn’t.”
“You could,” Fluttershy said, face rapidly twisting between tearful and angry. “You didn’t have to. You could have gone to sleep. You could have talked to us. And even then…” She growled. “You didn’t have to do this to me.”
“Fluttershy, I was just trying to get you to find yourse-“
“THIS ISN’T ME!” Fluttershy shouted, pointing at her face. “I don’t CARE about the gods or what they did to me, goddess, pegasus, whatever! They were no help in my quest, I had to make my way here myself! Tell me, Pinkie, why am I crying? Why am I so… so…” She grabbed Pinkie by the shoulders and started shaking. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME!?”
Pinkie’s smile was gone; she was crying. “I just… I just wanted to help…”
“Maybe you could have helped if you understood what sorrow and grief and distress actually were! But you removed that! You… you…” Fluttershy was actually crying now. She dropped Pinkie, swallowing hard. “Never… never write about me without my permission ever again. Or anypony.”
“O-okay…” Pinkie breathed.
Fluttershy wiped her face and went to the room her armor was stacked in.
There was an awkward silence punctuated only by the clunk of Fluttershy putting her armor on.
Pinkie looked up at the other mares. “What… what do I do?”
“…What’s done is done,” Rarity said, eventually. “You made a mistake. A terrible one. You’re going to have to live with it. Unless you decide to write that away as well.”
Pinkie winced.
“But you will live with it, and continue with your life.” Rarity set a hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder. “This power is a gift. A dangerous gift. And we would be fools not to use it.”
Pinkie smiled again. “Yep.”
Rarity bit back a chiding remark – Pinkie probably couldn’t do anything about that smile right now.
Rainbow coughed. “Pinkie… I don’t know much about the ‘rules’ of your powers, but there’s a much better chance of things you write coming true if you try to make an overarching narrative with all the stuff you… well, you put in your books.”
Twilight spoke up. “You were right all along. This is a story. Looks like it might be your story.” She extended a completely ordinary hoof to her, as if to pull her out of the sand. “I really don’t understand what you did. But we’re okay. You can tell us how this story ends; how to defeat Rx’len.”
Pinkie took the hoof and pulled Twilight into an embrace. They were the same size right now – it was a lot less awkward than it would have been otherwise.
“D-did you just say… Rx’len?” Fluttershy said, stepping back into the room.
Twilight pulled herself away from Pinkie. “Yes. We did.”
“…That’s the forbidden name of the king of monsters.”
Twilight nodded. “Makes sense… Rx’len has been cursing all our worlds. Except this one.”
“Not this one?” Hazel asked – currently hugging his wife.
“Something about it doing a good enough job on its own.”
“Ah…” Hazel nodded in understanding.
“So… Rx’len killed me…” Fluttershy frowned, looking at her halo. “Or Saturn…”
“Yes, that is wh-“ Rarity stopped her sentence. “I’m sorry, Fluttershy, did you just say you were Saturn?”
“Partially? I’m… only getting inklings of it right now.”
“And the other gods? Jupiter? Neptune? Uranus?”
Fluttershy nodded. “Yeah, those are the other gods.”
“They’re horrible people, don’t recommend them,” Twilight said.
Rarity twitched. “Those… those are the names of the gods that abandoned my world…”
“Wouldn’t surprise me if they were the same.”
Rarity twitched. “Fluttershy… I think I’d like to have a word with your siblings.”
“Shouldn’t we make a plan first?” Applejack asked. “Figure out what we’re doing to win this?”
Rarity nodded. “Fluttershy, while we’re there we’ll recruit some hunters. Everypony else, gather any allies you can from the other worlds. We’ll see what we have…” she turned to Pinkie. “And then we’ll see what kind of ‘story’ we’re in.”
Twilight was a little shocked she wasn’t calling the shots, but she nodded in agreement nonetheless.
“Good.” Rarity turned to Twilight. “Do you mind?”
Twilight shook her head. She created a portal to the Mesh, still clank clank clanking in time with Applejack. A second portal opened up past this one, leading to Fluttershy’s world.
Rarity jumped through with Fluttershy, leaving Pinkie’s house behind.
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Well that's an ominous chapter title...
Yup, as I feared. Pinkie didn't cure herself, she lobotomized herself. I hope she still retains some capacity for negative emotions. Otherwise her stories are going to ring false whenever they take a darker turn. And hopefully she won't try to sequence break anyone else's character development. Friends don't speedrun friends, Pink Horse.
Still, they definitely have a chance. Now to see what they do with it.
In which Pinkie finds out she's not Grant Morrison.
It's implied to be a bad thing, but I don't see anything wrong with Pinkie writing herself back to normal. I don't think it's inherently bad to alter yourself, it's just that her decision was really really stupid and naive and bad and unhealthy. Pinkie could "retcon" the story so she learned her lesson about messing with things she doesn't understand and become herself again. And useless, but y'know, they'll cross that bridge when they come to it.
9910583
I don't think she lobotomized herself, only that she wrote away this specific process of grief, the dealing with world shattering truths and agency in murder. She can still feel it - she wouldn't be distressed with things but going the way she imagined if she couldn't - but she can't do it with what she wrote away.
If she somehow kills someone else though her writing she'll likely suffer less - she apparently super speeded up the grieving process, not simply erase it - but she'll still suffer. If her really is shattered again she might deal with it better, or maybe worse. But I severely doubt she'd be stupid enough to get rid of such a crucial part of her psyche as being able to fell pain an distress are.
If anything she's a writer first and foremost, and those are the tools of her trade.
Pinkie, err, The Pink One's power seems to remind me of The Author from Once Upon A Time
9911776
I think there's probably a lot more to it than that. Hazel's initial reaction was one of disbelief - implying that taking this way out was out of character for Pinkie.
We don't know - and nobody asked to see - what she wrote. Or how much.
Plus, one of the oldest tricks in the book - we never saw the body.
9910583
She clearly can still feel negative emotions, best displayed when she was crying as Fluttershy was freaking out at her. She's written away her guilt for having written stories and for getting Bolt killed, and she's also written away the lingering fear and horror of New Alice.
The whole problem with repressing negative emotions is they're not really gone. Pinkie doesn't have that problem, at least in regards to the aforementioned topics. She wrote them away. There is, in the short term, no downside to a one-time use of this ability, especially given the circumstances. Pinkie needs to be functional, and if she isn't, they're probably screwed.
The biggest potential problem is her becoming dependent on this sort of thing. Repeated use would stunt emotional growth and could, over time, turn her into something of a sociopath. If she never deals with negative feelings, she loses touch with others and can't empathize with them. A major issue, I'm sure we can all agree.
TL;DR Pinkie using her Narrator powers to keep herself in the game this one time is fine, albeit disturbing, but she must not become dependent on them to fix all her problems.
Well, time to commune with the gods. This is gonna be fun, and by fun I mean "not a good experience". Can't imagine they'll be happy to see Twilight again.
Damn, that just adds another layer to the hurt, doesn't it? That dark place has (had?) a purpose - to be used to convey a message of happiness and optimism. But the dark twist is that real people are suffering.
seethisisexactlythekindofthingthatIwasworriedwasgoingtohappenthisisverynotgood
...Okay...uh...wow. That...*that* was a bombshell reveal. I have so many emotions right now about this.
And there it is. Full nomenclature and everything for those who don't already know.
Oh...ah, damn...somehow that hurts even more to hear.