How to be Happy

by Leafdoggy

Chapter 17: Smiles and Crowns

“Pinkie, wait!” Fluttershy trotted quickly up alongside Pinkie Pie at the edge of the dark street. Pinkie had been walking back towards the elevator with her head hung low, dragging her hooves with every step, and took a step away when Fluttershy came close to her. “Pinkie,” Fluttershy said quietly, “please don’t just leave like that.”

“I wanna go home.” They’d stopped walking, and Pinkie was staring hard at a wall.

“And you can,” Fluttershy told her, “I just don’t like leaving things unsaid.”

“What more is there to say?” Pinkie still wouldn’t look at Fluttershy. “You think me and Pinkamena are too broken to take care of ourselves.”

“I don’t!” Fluttershy made a distraught noise. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I’ll try to trust you more in the future.”

“Mm.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“I know.” Pinkie started walking again.

Fluttershy walked too but didn’t try to close the distance between them. “I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

Pinkie huffed. “You’re still going after her?”

Fluttershy sighed. “It’s not because of her, Pinkie, it’s just this place. It makes me uneasy. I won’t force her to come home or anything, I just want to see that she’s okay. Just to put my mind at ease.”

“Mm.”

“I… I love you, Pinkie.”

“I love you too, Fluttershy.” Pinkie didn’t look back.

Fluttershy stopped walking and watched as Pinkie made her slow, deliberate trek back to the elevator.

Then she sighed and turned around to face the city. “Okay, Pinkamena, where could you be?”

---

Midnight gave Pinkamena a light shove towards the heavy glass doors leading into a fancy store. “C’mon, it’s easy. Just act like you’re supposed to be doing what you’re doing and nopony will question it.”

“I don’t know…” Pinkamena scratched one leg with her other hoof. “It-It’s not right! I’m a good pony!”

Midnight rolled her eyes. “Come on, a little fun isn’t gonna turn you into Grogar or whatever. Anyway, look at this place! You don’t set up a shop like that in a place like this unless you’re expecting this kinda thing. I bet they’re down here just so kids will swipe from them instead of somepony who actually needs the cash.”

“I don’t know, that’s a real stretch…”

“Look, you told me at dinner you wanna try new things. This is a new thing! Just do it once, at a place where it won’t hurt the owner, and if you don’t like it you never have to do it again. You can even go back in and just pretend you forgot you had it on you.”

Pinkamena bit her lip and glanced in the window, looking over the wide array of jewelry and accessories set out for display. “I don’t even know what I would want. It’s not like I have any piercings.”

“I dunno, a bracelet?” Midnight thought for a moment as she looked over Pinkamena. “You’d look cute in a scarf I bet.”

“How am I supposed to hide a scarf?”

“I never said hide it. Just wear it out.”

Pinkamena danced anxiously on the spot. “I really don’t know.”

Midnight feigned a pout. “Aw, but now that I imagined it I really wanna see you in a scarf.” She leaned in close, ran a hoof along Pinkamena’s chin. Pinkamena could feel her breath hot on her ear. “Do it for me?”

Pinkamena blushed hard and gulped. “I-I-I—” She took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

Midnight chuckled breathily, still inches from Pinkamena. “Good luck, cutie. I’ll be waiting.”

Pinkamena took a step forward on unsteady legs. She stopped herself, focused and forced her legs to stop shaking, then kept moving. She felt her heart starting to pump faster.

The glass door was heavier than she expected. When she let go of it after walking in, it slammed shut on its own and let the whole store know she’d come in. She jumped and yelped, then shoved a hoof in her mouth to stifle herself.

She looked around. The store was empty. She let out her breath and moved deeper in.

The layout of the store was strange and hard to navigate. There were no clear aisles, and nothing seemed to be grouped together. Next to a low table filled with brooches would be a rack of ties, even though there had been plenty of ties right at the entrance. It didn’t help that half of the spaces that could have been aisles were blocked by full-length mirrors set up to let customers look at themselves. It was a mess.

She wandered aimlessly for a bit, trying to either find the scarves or divine the layout of the store, and eventually came across the latter. It struck her while she was glancing over a table of necklaces and noticed they were all turquoise. She hadn’t noticed it before because of the garish patterns half of the items had and the owner’s bizarre prioritization, but now that she saw it, it couldn’t be more clear.

She glanced quickly around and easily located the section of the store filled with black clothing and jewelry. It wasn’t near the check-out counter, which was lucky since the cashier had returned some time ago, but it also wasn’t anywhere near the exit, and that made her hooves feel like lead.

Still, she pushed her way towards it.

It wasn’t a very big section, since black gemstones were uncommon and black accessories had a tendency to be fairly uniform, and it was simple to find the small supply of scarves. There were maybe two dozen to choose from, all hanging in a line from a single rack that Pinkamena reached out for and started to rifle through. There wasn’t much to see; Black, black, and more black, none of which jumped out at her as particularly noteworthy.

One towards the end caught her eye, though. The bulk of it was entirely black, but a sizable portion at each end had been portioned out into chunks of gray that got lighter as they neared the ends. The colors reminded her of her sisters. She pulled it down and wrapped it around her neck, then wandered over to the nearest mirror and looked herself over.

It was an incredible sight. She hadn’t actually looked at herself in some time, and she hardly recognized the pony she was looking at. The swirling patterns on her legs almost seemed to melt into the scarf, which puffed out around her neck and gave her a sense of volume that offset the flatness of her mane. It offset it enough, in fact, that she thought her mane almost looked… Nice.

Almost.

An idea struck her, and she spun around to look around her. It was easy to find the table with what she wanted, a smattering of onyx and obsidian jewelry of all sorts, and she dug through them for what she wanted.

She found one that was perfect, a simple dark gray band studded with black diamonds, went back to the mirror and affixed the hair clip to her mane. She pulled the flat, smooth strands of hair behind her ear and fixed any glaring imperfections, then looked herself over again.

Her heart raced. She looked perfect. She looked like a real pony, with her own thoughts and her own mind. She looked like Pinkamena.

And the ensemble was made all the better by the wide smile that stretched across her face.

With a skip in her step and a twinkle in her eye, she made her way to the door. She barely even remembered the fear of being caught or the terror of becoming a bad pony. She could think only of—

“Ma’am?”

Pinkamena froze. Her heart started to beat out of control. Blood rushed to her ears and she started to feel light-headed. She could hardly move her body, and only just managed to turn and face the voice.

The cashier was looking straight at her. This was it.

“Could you come here for a moment?” She asked. The pony behind the counter was impeccably dressed. She had the kind of style that made it clear she wanted to look fabulously wealthy, and she had a confidence that said that she didn’t care if you knew that she wanted that.

Pinkamena pulled on her legs like a puppeteer pulling on strings, and like a puppet, her body took slow, deliberate steps over to the counter.

“Y-Yes?” Pinkamena croaked out.

The mare smiled warmly. “Yes, I was just wondering where you had your work done. It’s so clean, I’m just stunned!”

“M-My work?”

“Your legs, dear.” She pointed down over the counter. “The dye?”

“O-Oh.” Pinkamena took a moment to process the question. “Oh!” A feeling of utter relief washed over her. “Um, my friend Rarity did it for me.”

The mare gasped. “The Rarity? You’re her friend? Well, of course you are, look at you!” She chuckled to herself. “What’s your name, dearie?”

“Um… Pinkamena.”

“Pinkamena…” She put a hoof to her chin in a show of thought. “Oh! Are you that ‘Pinkie Pie’ she speaks so fondly of?”

“Um…” Pinkamena pursed her lips. She hadn’t considered how to answer this question to strangers. “No, she’s… She’s my sister.”

“Oh, how cute! Pinkie and Pinkamena, are you twins?”

Pinkamena thought for a moment, then smiled. “Yeah… Yeah, we are.”

“Well, be sure to tell Rarity that her skill with dye is impeccable.”

Pinkamena nodded. “I will. Thank you, ma’am.” Then she turned and, as slowly as she could manage with her racing heart, walked out of the store.

Midnight greeted her on the street with a grin. “Well, look at you! I knew you’d be cute in a scarf.”

Pinkamena smiled behind red cheeks. “Thank you. I… I really like it.”

“Good!” Midnight turned, wrapped her wing around Pinkamena, pulled her close and started them off down the street. “So? How’d it feel?”

Pinkamena gave her a confused glance. “How’d what feel?”

Midnight scoffed. “Stealing, silly. Was it fun?”

“I…” Pinkamena looked down and searched her feelings.

Had it been fun? She was thrilled with how she looked, and she’d even grabbed a second thing, but did that mean she had fun? Was Pinkamena a pony that liked to steal things?

It was too hard to say. In the end, she just shrugged. “I don’t really know. I can’t tell.”

Midnight squeezed her. “Well, you didn’t not have fun, and you gave it a shot. That’s what matters.”

Pinkamena nodded. “Yeah.” Without thinking, she leaned her head on Midnight’s shoulder. “So, what’s next?”

“You aren’t tired? Aren’t you surface ponies supposed to sleep at night?”

Pinkamena giggled. “I could stay up all night if I’m having fun.”

“Well, there’s plenty of options. Magic duels, gambling.” Midnight looked down at Pinkamena and, impulsively, ran a hoof through her mane. “Do you wanna go bigger or smaller than swiping a scarf?”

“There’s bigger stuff than stealing?”

Midnight laughed. “Oh, yeah. I mean, we’re not gonna go break the law more, but… Well, you’ll see.” She grinned at Pinkamena, and Pinkamena grinned back.