Mind of a Madman

by Botched Lobotomy

Mystery

What—

Where—

Why—

Water gasped and fizzed around her head, sucking, swallowing, until—air!—she was pulled under again, paddling wildly, legs and wings thrashing beneath the waves, lungs burning beneath the cold—air, she needed air—something caught against her hoof, and she almost swallowed another mouthful of the freezing ocean; she thrashed forward, her hooves connecting again, and suddenly she was above the swirling, drowning waves, and she could see the sky, the sand, the sea—a few moments longer, and she was safe on shore.

The sand was warm, wet, and deliciously firm—it was ground, it was not the sea, and that was what mattered. She lay there, the beach harsh against her cheek, and tried to breathe through her choking, through the water that bubbled from her mouth with every rasping cough. Foaming waves lapped gently around her, ebbing beneath her dripping feathers and fur. It took her an alarming amount of time, about the same length as her lungs took to even, to realise somepony was watching her.

“You made it.”

Luna scrambled to her hooves, jumping back from the pony. It took her a moment to recognise the mare.

“...Pinkie Pie?”

The mare nodded, turning away. She too was damp, her mane hanging wetly in a tangled rag over her shoulder. A trail of hoofprints tailed away behind her from a half-washed scuffle at the sea.

Further along the shore, another pony was clawing herself free of the waves, eyes wide and fearful. A third, who somehow seemed much drier than the others, was already standing, waiting, on the sand.

All three of them, it was impossible not to notice, had the same pink mane and fur.

“Wh-what’s going on?” Luna asked, scrambling to catch up to Pinkie Pie—the first one, anyway. “How...how did we get here?”

As she spoke, she realised that she had no idea where, exactly, here was. A sandy coast. Frost-tipped blue waves lapping upon the sands. Dry grass sprouting here and there and tufting into great white dunes behind them. She tilted her head, squinting up into the bright blue sky. The sun winked down beneath a perfect chequerboard of clouds, layered in their rows upon rows like a great chessboard plastered across the heavens. Suddenly, somehow, she felt even less sure of their whereabouts.

“Everypony alright?” called the first Pinkie Pie, as they all gathered about her.

Luna stared desperately around herself for something that made sense. Where had she been? What was the last thing she remembered? Her place in Silver Shoals, staring up at the ceiling...a ceiling warm and hoofmade, far from this remote precision. She had been thinking about...something. She couldn’t remember what. Tracing the wavering painted lines of the ceiling, thoughts following their ripples and turns, wandering...and then darkness, blankness. Like someone had taken a great scoop out of her memories and left nothing behind but void.

“Just— just about,” said the second, vigorously shaking herself dry. The third, whose mane and tail were free enough of water to puff up with most of their usual bounce, gave a smile. “Sure am!”

All three of them were undeniably Pinkie. They had her fur, her eyes, her spark. It was as unmistakable as it was unlikely.

One of the Pies, apparently the most intelligent of the lot, looked around, frowning. “I don’t suppose anyone knows where we are, by chance?”

Luna shook her head. “I’ve never seen this place before.”

The dry Pinkie shrugged dramatically. “Nope! Don’t even know how we got here.”

“My initial thought would be a ship,” said the first one wryly, “but I hardly see any evidence of one.” Luna got the distinct impression that an old gentlepony’s suit and tie would not go amiss on the mare.

Indeed, as she shaded her eyes with a hoof to gaze out to sea, she saw Pinkie Pie was right: not so much as a plank bobbed along the waves.

“The real question, though,” the dry Pinkie said, her voice slow, suspicious, as she levelled her gaze at Luna, “is why on Equestria we’re here!”

Luna stepped back, opening her mouth to defend herself, but the first Pinkie Pie cut in. “She hired us.”

“Huh?”

“She did?”

“I did?”

“You did.” Pinkie Pie scowled. “You sought us out—or me, at least—you needed a Pinkie, for some reason, and said you had a job for me.” She looked round at the other two with wide eyes. “I— I thought I was the only one, though.”

Luna frowned, the white space where her memories should be ringing empty as she tried to place it. “I...don’t remember.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.”

“Huh? Why wouldn’t she?”

Why wouldn’t I? Luna frowned, wracking her memories, but the emptiness gave up nothing. Luna knew the difference between remembrances which were merely hidden, and those that had been erased entirely, snipped neatly from her mind and destroyed. This void, she feared—she knew—was very much the latter.

She caught the smart Pinkie staring at her, and cleared her throat. “Mind magic.”

“Mind Magic?” The dry Pinkie tilted her head, as if a different angle would help the problem.

“That’s right.”

“You wiped our memories,” agreed Pinkie Pie. “Your memory, my memory—their memories too, it seems. The question is why.”

“Yes...” smart Pinkie narrowed her eyes. “Why would you do that?”

Luna swallowed. “You don’t know? Surely I would leave somepony...”

“The last thing I remember is you saying that if I accepted, I’d need to have my mind wiped.” Pinkie Pie kicked at the sand in disgust. “Apparently, I said yes.”

“So that’s it?” asked the dry Pinkie, “That’s really all we have?”

“Yup.” Pinkie Pie’s voice was grim. “We don’t know where we are, we don’t know what we’re supposed to do, and we don’t know how long we’ve got to do it.” She cast Luna a frown. “Whatever this is, it had better be worth it.”

“Oooooh,” dry Pinkie’s eyes widened in delight. “I like mysteries!”

“Well,” mused Luna, gazing back out across the sparkling sea, “until we solve this one, I’m not sure it matters how long we have. I’m not seeing a way off this place, so it looks like we’ve got as much time as we need.”

“Unless we don’t,” said smart Pinkie, with a worried smile.

“Indeed,” agreed her fellow Pinkie Pie, with even less cheer. “Unless we don’t.”

---

None of them knew how long they’d been walking. The beach was far behind them, at least, and growing farther with every step. The dunes had soon given way to grassy brushland, which had just as quickly grown into a forest, which had sunk into a swap. Through the scattered canopy above, the chequered ceiling was just about visible, the sky behind those cut-square clouds purplish and shining.

As they picked their way over the stinking logs, the path beneath their hooves squishy and unsteady, Luna’s heart seemed to sink with her steps. A creeping suspicion, growing stronger by the minute, had taken residence inside her head, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t quite shake it out. She was beginning to think she knew exactly where they were.

The detail was good, she had to admit. The shrubbery was wet, the undergrowth lively, and the bulbous, orange eyes which followed them along the path shy enough to be not a little creepy. But it wasn’t perfect. The sky, for one, was an obvious instance.

The air in this place was too cold. Luna knew what swamp air smelt like, what it tasted like, the way it stuck in your throat and clogged your lungs—Celestia had dragged her on enough excitement for the feeling to be so deeply ingrained the mere memory could make her shiver—and the air here simply wasn’t quite right. It didn’t have the right temperature, the right stickiness, the right viscosity.

The forest, further, had given way too quickly. Barely ten trees had gone by before the murk had taken over, and each had seemed a rather half-hearted affair, tall and straight and without a hint of personality about them. High enough and wide enough to be ten years old; and not a flaw for any one of those years. She half-wondered what would happen if she cut one open.

And then, of course, there was the mountain. They had seen it in the distance from the dunes, and, without another goal to reach, had set out determinedly towards it. In all that time, it had grown not an inch. In fact—she’d measured it, holding a hoof against her eye for scale—she was pretty sure it was getting further away.

Luna had walked enough minds to know the signs—and every one of them was just slightly off. They were in a dream, that much was certain. The only question, really, was whose. To create a space at this detail, in this resolution... The chill that passed along her spine had nothing to do with the temperature.

“Um, Princess, are you okay?” Pinkie’s voice echoed strangely off the marsh, soggy almost, like the damp had infiltrated her very being.

“I’m alright, Pinkie, thank you,” she said, turning her head to give the mare a reassuring smile. “It’s just...”

“What?” asked the smart Pinkie, from behind.

Luna sighed. “I...” she paused, considering how to put it. “Do you remember the night, many moons ago, when you came to my aid against the Tantabus?”

“Pardon?” asked the first Pinkie Pie, from up ahead. “The what?”

“The...Tantabus?” Luna repeated, with less certainty. “The creature of my nightmares that escaped into your own? Almost escaped into the real world?” She stopped, staring in disbelief at the three blank expressions. “We only barely stopped it from destroying Equestria?” How could they not remember?

“I’m afraid it doesn’t ring a bell,” smart Pinkie said.

Did it truly mean so little? Luna had a memory an aeon old—give or take a few vacant spots—and she could recall most everything about that night, when they had helped her see, for the first time, how much she had really changed—had shown her that Nightmare Moon was gone, vanquished, never to well up again. The night when that boiling, oozing sore deep inside had started to heal...

“None of you remember?”

“Princess,” said Pinkie, with a vague roll of her hoof, “we do a lot of world-saving.”

“I wouldn’t remember anyway,” the first Pinkie Pie said quietly.

Smart Pinkie raised an eyebrow. “How’s that?”

“Forget it.” Luna started off again, pushing through the muck. “Perhaps the memory was removed, as as mine have been, or perhaps you simply don’t remember. It doesn’t matter.” The salt, drying in the cool air, crusting her fur, stung a little. “We shared a dream, that night, and I fear...I’m almost certain...something similar is happening just now.”

Behind her, two sets of hooves drew to a stop. The air seemed to slow, the wind change, colder and harsher against her fur as she turned to face them.

“You mean...we’re in a dream?” Pinkie’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Who dreams about a swamp?”

“Do you know?” asked smart Pinkie, “Whose dream this is, I mean.”

“Can we talk about this on the move?” Pinkie Pie stomped her hoof in irritation.

“I’m not sure it makes any difference,” said Luna, bluntly. “I don’t think that mountain’s getting closer either way.”

Smart Pinkie smiled. “So you did notice.”

“You knew?” Luna’s frown deepened. “ Then why—”

“Maybe it’s just reeeally far away,” suggested Pinkie cheerfully. “If we just keep going—”

“That’s not how dreams—”

“How do dreams work, then?” Pinkie Pie moved closer. “Can’t we just—”

“Whose dream are we in, Princess?” smart Pinkie’s voice cut through the noise as she watched Luna, staring deep into her eyes. For a moment, the silence was complete, broken not by the wind, or the water, or the ferns, or the ponies. An awful, alien quiet, distant and absolute, impossibly still.

“...I know of only a few minds capable of a world this particular.” Sound flooded back as Luna’s words broke the calm. Nopony else yet dared breathe. “And I dread to think why we’d visit any of them.”

Pinkie Pie swallowed nervously. “Who is it, then?”

“I hope I’m wrong. I really, sincerely hope I’m wrong.” Luna looked up again at the chequerboard clouds, and levelled her gaze again at the smart Pinkie. There was something in those eyes, she thought, something strange, other, not entirely pony.

The mare smiled, and as she watched that smile stretched too wide, even for Pinkie, her mouth too sharp to be real. “Bingo!” Smart Pinkie’s voice was hoarse, gleeful, as it deepened. Her mane was all of a sudden too thin, her coat all of a sudden too pale, her neck all of a sudden too long. As they watched, she seemed to lengthen, warp, distort, mutate, somehow all without changing even slightly. Nubs of bone split the fur on her head, claws forced themselves through her hooves, and in an instant, she was standing before them different, twisted—and yet precisely the same.

“Discord,” Luna breathed, setting herself firmly against the ground.

“In the flesh!” he said brightly, stroking his beard with a grin. “I wondered how long it would take you.”

“Of course it’s you.” Luna grit her teeth, waving for the remaining Pinkies to stand back.

“Well who else did you expect? Oh, I’m curious—who were the other people who could do all this?” he waved a lazy paw at the surrounding marsh, which bloomed with sudden life at his gesture.

“What are you up to now, Discord? What have you done that made me come in here?”

“Beats me,” he shrugged. Plucking a mutant flower from the path, he tossed it from one claw to the other. “I honestly assumed you’d know—clever trick, that, by the way. Very devious. But I’m afraid whatever it is, I really can’t have you wandering about in here all by yourselves.”

Behind her, Pinkie waved a hoof enthusiastically. “I’m sure we have good reasons!”

“Well, maybe,” Discord conceded. “It’s really more the idea of thing thing, though, isn’t it?”

“We can’t leave until we know why we’re here.” Luna lowered her head, training her horn directly on him.

Discord’s snaggle tooth gleamed in the sunlight as be bared his fang in a smile. “You know, I was kind of hoping you would say that.”

“I believe it. You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”

“Oh, now Princess,” he said with a pout, “that’s not quite fair.” His grin widened as he pointed the flower straight back at her. “I’ve changed just as much as you have.”

Discord’s eyes sparked, the flower glowed, and a beam of light cut the air as Luna ducked out the way. Her horn flashed, and a shimmering blue shield fizzled up around her. Discord laughed.

“Get out of my head!” Another beam ripped the ground as it bounced off her shield, and Luna felt her magic flicker for a second at the force of it. She couldn’t keep this up. With a gasp, she turned, lifting Pinkie Pie out the way of another bolt, feeling the heat of it sear the ground behind her. Her lungs burned as she burst into action, instinct taking over, flooding her system, as she yelled the only option they had left.

“Run!”
As they took off, she tried desperately to think. She had come in here with a plan, surely. She wasn’t such a fool as to venture into Discord’s mind without one—unless of course that was the plan, to have no plan; but no, that was silly, no plan didn’t count as a plan—he was too dangerous for that—she ducked another bolt, the ground beside her exploding in a cheerful, fiery powder—and besides, she’d clearly had something, because there was the space left where it had been. She cursed her younger self for all this nonsense. What had she been thinking? What—she darted to avoid a beam—had—rolling, another skipped by her, missing her head by inches—she—tree, tree!—been—she screeched to a halt as one flew just ahead, hammering into the ground just where she would have been—thinking?

“Luna!”

She looked over, barely dodging a line that singed her mane. “What?”

“Luna!”—suddenly Pinkie Pie was galloping next to her, her fur bloodied and streaked with dirt—“Why did you bring us? Why did you need us in a dream?”

A dream! Yes, of course, this was a dream! Why was she running, this was a dream, she was the mistress of dreams, it was in her title! This was the most detailed dream she’d yet seen, but it was a dream nonetheless. Her horn glowed, light spilling out, brighter and brighter as she concentrated, her whole vision turning a sickly washed-out blue, visualising the world around her as just some thing, some construct, created and imagined by some being, and changeable and malleable as such, and with a quick prayer to whatever gods or powers may have been watching, grabbed the world by its concept—and yanked.

Nothing happened. Luna was so shocked she almost hit a tree, narrowly veering out of the way as it whisked past at alarming speed.

“What happened?” cried Pinkie Pie.

“I...I don’t know.” Luna slowed as she reached the edge of the foliage, and realised they were back upon those same sand dunes they’d started out from. This is Discord’s dream. The laws of nature were more like guidelines to him at the best of times. Her eyes widened. “Pinkie Pie! Try to focus!”

“Wh—” She was cut off by a bolt vaporising the ground by her hooves. “What?”

“Imagine the world as a concept! It’s a dream. Grab hold of that dream. Like it’s a book!”

“Alright?”

“Pick up a different book!”

Comments

[Unshackled_Unbroken]

Im mad rat.

[AlexTFish]

Whee. This has definitely got the "mysterious" feeling down pat. A dream is an excellent setting for a mystery.

[Yoshifan30]

Boy this is very interesting But I was wondering is it the real pinkie pie or the clone a not really sure what's happening