Depression is Tragic

by artistwithouttalent

Life of Pies

Rarity contemplated the gray mush sitting before her. After prodding it with her muzzle and sniffing it a few times, she took a bite.

The issue with this dish wasn’t a bad flavor, but rather a complete absence thereof. The mass’s mushy texture didn’t help matters. Still, she ate, albeit without much enthusiasm; after all, she didn’t want to offend the family that would be taking her in until the police spread this far out searching. After a few more bites, she decided that she needed a break, and as such began an attempt at conversation.

“So,” Rarity said, hesitating, “what does one do on a rock farm?”

“Well, duh,” Pinkie said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world, “we harvest rocks!”

“Yes,” Rarity said, “but what does that entail? How does one make a living as a rock farmer?”

“Well, we roll the rocks around the field, and that makes gemstones grow inside them,” said a gray foal with a black mane. Rarity had been introduced to the family at a whirlwind pace by Pinkie, and as far as she could make out, this foal was named Octavia.

“Gemstones?” Rarity said in astonishment.

“Yeah,” said the other foal, who Rarity thought was named Puddin’. “Then Pinkie uses her—“ Puddin’ muttered something here and made incomprehensible gestures with her hooves; Rarity couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard “witchcraft”—“and tells us which rocks are ready to harvest. It works like this: if she bucks the rock 3 times, it’s ready to harvest; if she doesn’t, it ain’t.”

“Well, how do you harvest the gems?” Rarity said, taking a sudden interest which the Pies either didn’t notice or didn’t care about.

“Well, Shepherd,” Pot Pie said, indicating her husband, “bucks the rock in just the right spot and she shatters. Then we give the leftover rocks to some ponies down the road a little ways; they always tell us that they make some kind of soup out of ‘em…”

Pinkie gasped. “I know! Why don't you help us farm tomorrow!”

“No!” Rarity said, but she quickly backtracked; she didn't want to seem too averse to the idea. “I mean, no, I'd better not. I've never farmed before, and I'd only slow you down.”

“You don't have to push the rocks,” Pinkie said, “just look for gems. You found Big Jim with your magic and you weren't even trying!”

“Pinkamena,” Pot began, “this young lady is our guest, and she won't be forced to work if she don't want to.”

“Now hold on,” Rarity said, mulling it over.

“It's not like I'd get too dirty,” she thought to herself. “Besides, this family has kindly offered to care for me until the police find me, which won't be for at least 2 days, and it's not like I'll have anything else to do in the mean time.”

“I'd be delighted,” Rarity said at last, trying to sound convincing.

“YAY!” Pinkie shouted, but before she could run around the table and tackle Rarity a second time, Shepherd came to her rescue.

“Pinkamena,” he said without looking up from dinner.

Pinkie let out a sigh. “Yes, father.”

•••

At Pinkie's insistence, Rarity slept in Pinkie's room that night, alongside Pinkie, and found, much to her dismay, that Pinkie muttered in her sleep. After giving up trying to sleep as a fruitless endeavor, she lay in bed wondering about the foal she was sleeping next to: out of all the members of the Pie family, it had been Pinkie who had put herself in charge of everything pertaining to Rarity, from the moment she arrived.

“Literally everything,” she thought. “From escorting me to the house, to getting dinner, to insisting that I stay in her room, even though she only has one bed. What sort of interest does this foal have in me?”

Rarity contemplated asking Pinkie about her intentions, but she decided to wait until the next day. As it was, she drifted into a fitful state of half sleep.

•••

Rarity was roused by the lamp next to her on a makeshift nightstand, not to mention the pink foal bouncing on the bed next to her.

“Time to get up! Wake up! Wake up!” Pinkie called, bouncing on each exclamation.

Rarity let out a groggy moan.

“Ugh. I'm up, I'm up,” she mumbled to whatever was bouncing next to her.

Pinkie stopped bouncing and walked around to Rarity's side of the bed.

“That's not up, silly,” she said with a giggle. She helped Rarity to her hooves.

“My, my,” she said, barely awake. “What's going on?”

“We're going out to farm,” Pinkie said, with that same air of “didn't you know this already?” around her words.

Rarity yawned. “Oh yes, that's right,” she said, finally starting to wake up.

Pinkie dragged her to the breakfast table where it looked like the same flavorless mush that was last night's dinner was this morning's breakfast. Being hungry and indifferent, she ate more readily. As she was eating, she noticed that it tasted better this time around, though she wasn't sure if it was because she was hungry or if she was actually getting used to a lack of flavor.

After breakfast, Pinkie escorted Rarity out to the field to test her magical abilities.

“Come on, Rarity, you can do it!” Pinkie cheered.

Rarity put forth all of the effort she could muster, and...

Nothing. She concentrated even harder to try and lead her to a gem-filled rock. Her face contorted into a dozen different strained expressions, when suddenly...

Nothing. She gave it one final push, exhausting all her effort. Her face turned beet red with the effort. She clenched her teeth, squinted her eyes, and...

Not even her aura came up. Gasping, she collapsed into sobs on a nearby rock.

“It's OK, Rarity,” Pinkie said in a voice of consolation unusual to her. “You gave it your best.”

“Th-then why di-di-didn't it work?” she gasped out in between wails.

Pinkie attempted to divine some comforting words, but found herself at a loss. Instead, she found herself asking the same question.

“That's a good question: why didn't it work?” she asked herself, paying no heed to her friend's bemoanings. This, understandably, aggravated Rarity no end.

“Pardon me, but reiterating the same question I just asked rhetorically isn't really helping us!” she called out.

“I know, but it doesn't make sense. I mean, you found Big Jim without even trying! And I've been eying him for a long time now,” Pinkie replied, pondering this point as Rarity rose to her hooves and walked over.

“Pinkie,” she said, sighing, “perhaps 'Big Jim' doesn't have anything to do with it. Maybe my horn just randomly led me to that spot.”

“No, I don't think so,” Pinkie said, in the same way a six-year old kid would tell an author that the author's interpretation of his or her own story isn't accurate. “I mean, your horn started glowing and dragging you, right?”

“Yes,” Rarity replied, curious as to where the pink foal was headed with this line of thinking.

“And you bumped into Big Jim and stopped, right?”

“Yes?”

“And you weren't trying to find him?”

“No,” Rarity said, exasperated. “Now is this leading somewhere?”

Pinkie thought for a moment. Then suddenly, she had an idea.

“I've GOT it!” she cried out. “You can't find gemstones because you're trying to find them!”

“Ugh!” Rarity shouted in disgust. She walked over to where Pinkie was. “Let's face it, dear, whatever happened that led me to that rock of yours was a one-off. Whatever caused me to locate it the first time, it was not meant to be.”

No sooner had she said this than she found herself being towed across the field by a nonphysical force. After about thirty seconds she found herself in the middle of a portion of the field that looked like it had not been tended regularly in years. The sky, it seemed, was particularly dark gray in this area. A nearby barn had holes in the wall where the framework was exposed and the weeds had begun an attempt to reclaim the massive rocks in the area for the Earth. The overall effect made Rarity uneasy, and as she was turning around to leave, she found that her way was blocked by a particularly indignant-looking Shepherd Pie.

“What do you think you're doing here?” Shepherd said, with more accusation in his voice than she would have thought possible, especially to a guest.

“I'm terribly sorry, sir, I don't seem to know what this is and I certainly did not attempt trespass--”

At that point Rarity was saved by the fact that Pinkie had caught up.

“Rarity!” she hissed, “don't you know you're not supposed to go into Father's special patch?”

Rarity looked at her with a face of pure incredulity.

“No,” she whispered back, “I honestly did not.”

“That's alright,” Shepherd said, suddenly resuming his normal stoic demeanor. Rarity was curious as to Shepherd's changing moods, but offered no further question on the matter.

Rarity and Shepherd switched places and she gladly backed out of the nightmarish area.

“Again, my sincerest apologies,sir,” she finished, always making sure that she was facing Shepherd and his “special patch”.

•••

In spite of the unusually creepy goings-on in Shepherd's special patch, Pinkie Pie was ecstatic.

“YOU DID IT! WOO!” she kept cheering as the two of them walked back to where they had been working.

Despite her concerns about the rest of the family, Rarity was pretty pleased with herself in that she had repeated her trick.

“So,” Pinkie began as they made their way to the northwest corner of the field, “what do you think did it?”

“Honestly, I think it was that I stopped trying,”she said with a chuckle.

“Wow, that's great, Rarity!” Pinkie said with her typical enthusiasm.

Rarity had to admit that Pinkie's mannerisms were contagious, as she began chuckling, too.

•••

As they sat down in their corner of the field, Rarity had finally planned out how she was going to talk to Pinkie about what was going on with her, and she decided that, right then and there would be as good of a place as any to do it.

“Pinkie, I must ask you,” she began, “why have you been so nice to me? You have been with me the entire time that I've been here, always seeking to help me out, to show me around, to provide encouragement, to get me out of a jam,” putting special humorous emphasis on the last part. “So why has it always been you?”

Pinkie looked momentarily taken aback and perhaps offended by Rarity's remarks, and Rarity was just about to retract them when the negativity left Pinkie's face, but the smile did not.

“Well,” she said, “first, you're the first outsider to come by in a long time, and aside from occasional guests, not much happens here: the skies are always gray, the job is long, tiring, and dull, and no one seems to be sympathetic to that. I love Mother and Father a whole lot, but they just don't seem to get me, you know.”

“I completely understand where you're coming from,” Rarity replied. “I love my parents dearly, but they just seem out of touch with me.”

“Second,” she said, showing a little more vulnerability than one would expect from Pinkie Pie, “I know how it feels to be a stranger with the Pies.”

“What do you mean?” Rarity said, simultaneously curious and confused.

Pinkie looked up and for the first time, Rarity saw how serious Pinkie was being.

“I'm adopted.”

Comments

[artistwithouttalent]

226492 And by "today", I of course mean "tomorrow"

Again, sorry it took so long, but life has had a way of intervening with me over the last few weeks.

[SirMrDrPwn]

Finally...

[artistwithouttalent]

Again, to everyone following this, I'm sorry about the delays; there's something up with my hard drive, so not only has my computer been incapacitated for several days, but while it's being repaired, I only have access to public computers. I plan to post more soon; spring break is one class away.