Do These Waffles Taste Funny to You?

by tin77

Parasprite

Dying was a lot less complicated than Rainbow Dash initially expected. For one, there was no pain. The ground never came and she soared on forever, the sensation of dread carrying her past the realm of impact. She always claimed that there was no afterlife and had always hoped to be proven wrong, but with her eyes still closed, no evidence could confirm or deny the illusion of existence.

Rainbow Dash was beginning to suspect that she hadn’t even died in the first place.

Right, she thought, the sensation of wind fading, Discord isn’t going to let me die. He wouldn’t do that. This isn’t some wacky bizarro long con chaos scheme. He loves Fluttershy too much, right?

Maybe he was having his own infinity of a life crisis and she was just caught in the fire. It would explain the aging he had caused for himself. The validity of the idea held no weight against his declarations of love, but who knew what anypony or draconequus thought at this point.

We’re all going through it together. Remembering this comment made Dash sharply aware of an inescapable stupidity that had trailed behind her each step of the way. She felt dumber than ever and that was a feat that rivaled any stunt she had pulled with the Wonderbolts, the competition fierce. How could she assume that any of her friends didn’t go to bed with the same exact nightmares? It was a move of ignorance innate to her and yet it was the same principle locking them away from one another. They were in their separate boxes unable to solve a problem so familiar because the fine details drew the distance further and further. Maybe all they had to do was reunite and use the Elements of Harmony, but those were gone and forgotten. How fitting.

Unable to find her peace, Rainbow opened her eyes. Like everything else in life, she had gone back to where she started. The distractions diluted anything familiar, the shapes losing color when no one was paying attention. What was left was a hollow copy, already faded before it could be remembered.

Ponyville was standing before her, its foundation undefined and its structures fuzzier than any previous memory witnessed. When Rainbow moved forward, the ground moved with her, buildings and scenery correcting themselves with each step.

No matter where she looked, the streets remained empty. It was hard to tell if it was even Ponyville to begin with. The echoes were obvious, but each familiarity only made it more foreign, the translation written in imperfect script. Nothing could be forced into place. Even the recent interactions of yesterday could not withstand the walls of withering static, locations expanding without logic or coherence.

Rainbow Dash entered a courtyard, unable to differentiate left from right.

Despite it all, Equestria remained.

Don’t panic. This is still just some messed up prank. You’re gonna wake up and you’re gonna be totally cool and the lesson will be learned and you’ll enjoy the rest of your life as it should be because otherwise you’ll end up back here and who wants that and who wants anything and who

In the center of the false city was a toy. Its colors stood solidified; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet lined up against one another in defiance of their surroundings.

Rainbow Dash was staring at a miniature version of herself, two ponies alone together in a world that could not hold them.

She wanted to break it into a million pieces.

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

A gentle voice broke the silence, the sound flooding all that could be seen. Before Rainbow Dash could turn, the speaker revealed themselves, their body floating separate from the rest of the blur.

In front of her was a green parasprite bobbing up and down above the toy, its eyes unblinking and its smile deceiving.

“Even in a world so peculiar, here you are, existing all the same.”

Words were forgotten and Rainbow Dash could not bring forth any feasible feeling. She stood in place, only remembering the comments she was supposed to be making, the ones that no longer matched her own volition. She was left with one response.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“And whatever might there be to kid about? I was under the impression that this was a grave subject of serious proportions.”

“Well I thought so too! But now there’s a talking parasprite right in front of me and I don’t even know what in the hay to think! I know I should have expected this with Discord but—”

“This is not of Discord’s design.”

Once again words left her, but this time there was no point in repeating her remaining comment; her face said it all.

“I am indeed a friend,” said the parasprite, its voice holding the same tone through every syllable, “but I have decided to flip his script just a bit. With your help of course.”

“…I think I’m getting a headache.”

“Come, Rainbow. Take a walk with me.”

As the parasprite began to move away from the toy, Rainbow Dash found that she had no choice but to follow. Maybe it was the sensation of grand design, or the mistakes of the past pushing her along, but she was going to find her answers, even if it came in the form of… whatever this was. She had held herself back for far too long to stop and sneer at the ridiculous.

“Now Rainbow, when you look around this place, what do you see?”

“Ponyville.” The answer came out as a mumble, her eyes struggling not to roll at the obvious.

“And whose Ponyville is that, exactly?”

Before Rainbow Dash could dismiss the pointless question with one word, her surroundings began to change, and her response was no longer certain. The reliable familiarities of the passing houses revealed themselves as mere tricks of the light. The ground was upside down and the buildings were inside out, Dash’s inspection exposing her imposed mimicries as an effort of delusion. The truth was in the spotlight and it could not be hidden.

“It’s a fascinating feature for this place, Rainbow Dash. What you perceive is exactly what you see.”

Tell me something I don’t know. Another comment held back. It was too easy to be herself.

“Everything you have witnessed here is a product of your own interpretation of all that had come before! Your thoughts are fluid and the past is only what you’ve written it as! Perhaps Discord expected you to utilize your desires differently, but who can ever be certain about anything until it is shown to us?”

Rainbow Dash nodded, desperate to understand a bundle of words so incomprehensible.

“This is why I came to offer interference. You draw yourself to the past and yet here we are in the future! One in the same!”

“Alright, alright, slow down, you’re going to have to walk me through this.”

“Thank goodness we’re already walking.”

Dash gave a small, forced chuckle, half-worried she would be smitten without hesitation if she did otherwise.

“Now here’s a question: what’s the one thing that we can guarantee about the far future?”

“That… Equestria will still be around, I hope.”

“Ah, but who’s to say, who’s to say? An admirable answer, but the only thing we can guarantee about the future is that we won’t get to see it!”

“And this is supposed to make me feel better?”

“It’s supposed to make you feel how you feel. I have not arrived to tell you that you’re wrong to have these problems in the first place. I’m here to talk, and talking is an awfully important thing is it not?”

“…Sure, let’s go with that.”

“It seems that your primary concern is that tomorrow will never match up to yesterday.”

A sharp pain wrapped its way around Rainbow Dash, the direct acknowledgment holding a special awfulness when removed from her own mind.

“Truly a cruel thing. We pay for wonder and happiness by having it become a means for comparison.”

The parasprite stopped without warning, forcing Dash to hold onto this statement for far longer than she wanted to. In front of them, separate screens began to spread themselves out across the landscape. There were nine in total, all of them condensing the scenes Dash had relived into separate periods of her life. Some moments were better than others, but as each memento continued, they melted into one single idea, one single truth that could not be reconstructed or rewritten.

Rainbow Dash saw her life and she saw that it was good. She saw that there was so much she had forgotten to love, so much she had failed to appreciate just because she had claimed her heart to feel otherwise.

Yet even with all of this, there was still joy.

And how could there not be? She saw the greatest friends she could have ever received, and she saw that they had cared in a way that could overflow into several lifetimes, even when she did her best to convince them she didn’t deserve it. There were so many mistakes, but with friends like these, they held no weight. What they shared triumphed every time. These were the victories she could rely on.

She wanted to rush forward and hug all of them. She wanted to admit to her tears and feel no shame in doing so.

Then she remembered that they weren’t in front of her, and the cycle began all over again.

Except that’s okay. You’ll see them again! You’ll see them again and it will be even more meaningful because of the absence. Nothing is ever really gone. It was Applejack who told you that, wasn’t it?

Maybe the cycle wasn’t as concrete as she may have expected.

“So is that what you’re here to tell me?” She broke from the screens, turning towards the Parasprite. She was unsure how long she had been lost in thought. “That I should get over the past and be thankful for where I’m at? Listen, I appreciate this, but it all seems a bit… simple. Too simple.”

“If that is your interpretation, then it shall be as so.”

“Hey, I’m trying my best here.”

“What you have said can have meaning, but you’re right. It’s simple. Too simple. I’m sure you’ve heard it many times over, the words going through one ear out the other. A fascinating thing really. When such advice becomes repeated, it becomes almost meaningless.”

“I mean, I get it, I like to live in the moment, but…”

“I think the big mistake here is that you’ve interpreted it as the idea that you should ‘get over’ the past. Take a look in front of you again. You miss these experiences dearly, but are they not also showing you how good things can be?”

“But it’s not the same. It just feels like a replacement. Yeah, things could be that good, but they aren’t.”

“Then it shall be as so.”

Rainbow Dash returned to the Parasprite, ready to sneer. “Thought you were supposed to be helping me.”

“Once again, I am here to talk. If you consider what I say helpful, then I am glad. But I am impartial to its effect.”

“…I’m sorry. I’m not too great at this, uh, self-reflection thing.”

“That’s because there’s no switch to flick Rainbow Dash. You can look at the future and see that you’ve remained, that you’ve become a great story among many, but this doesn’t change the fact that you won’t be around to witness it. It’s as I said before. What happens next is beyond us, but this moment exists, and that will always be true for now. Everything in front of you, everything surrounding us, they are nothing but tools for understanding.”

Gears turned in Rainbow’s brain, their rust cracking through a sheer force of will. Get over the past. Be thankful for where you’re at. This was what they tried to reinterpret. Maybe she had it all wrong. Maybe this was what she had been trying to force every morning, every night. The principle could remain, but there no longer had to be a perfect formula for stealing yesterday into the present. If she didn’t figure it out now, that was okay. She was starting to wonder if she would ever figure it out.

“The only fact that remains is that you’re going to have to fall in love over and over again. These were the words once spoken to me.”

A chill swept its way over Rainbow Dash. Over and over again. A simple phrase. One she had heard many times.

“A curse to some, a blessing to others, but it’s how it must be. Do you think you’re up to the task? Be careful about responding out loud. I believe that you already know the answer.”

Dash peeked at the screen, her head turning slightly. The dividing lines had faded, each section joining the other into a giant collage of all that had happened.

You’re going to have to fall in love over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again.

Do you think you’re up to the task?

The gears stopped in place.

Nothing had changed and she was left in the same exact place she was at the beginning. If this bothered her, she could not tell. What had been said was said, and what she took from this was yet to be proven.

“I believe that our time is drawing to a close Rainbow Dash. I’m sorry if I’ve only spoken the familiar, but thank you for this chance to be able to do so in the first place.”

Next to her, the parasprite was already fading into the future, its colors receding into the background.

“Wait, what?”

“I must go now Rainbow Dash. Thank you for sharing this moment with me.”

“But… I don’t… What even are you? What even is any of this?”

“I’m the same as everything else in this place. I am the conversation you were seeking in the midst of all that you could reexperience. Thank you for sharing this moment with me.”

Before she could demand any more answers, the parasprite popped out of existence, along with the rest of Equestria. In a brief second of consciousness, all that remained was a single toy, its colors reflecting against an endless void of potential.

Then that too was gone, leaving Rainbow Dash with nothing but the words ringing in her ears.

It was the one thing she could carry with her.