Introspection

by -Hidden Identity-

The Journey Continues

Pinkie had nothing to say. She smiled, started to form a sentence, halted, and withdrew any remark. From a journey of trial and forgiveness she had suspected that the worst had come and gone, that through a world of unreal color and vivid impossibility she had encountered enough to omit the feeling of being startled or even surprised. This was something else. This was still her mind, or was it? What had this grey version of her mentioned? Her state of mind? Who was this? Well, it was her, that much was obvious, but not in the same manner as those doppelgangers that had suffered their way out of the Mirror Pool, but something far more personal, and far more discouraging to see.

“What are you doing in my state of mind?” The other asked again.

“I was just…”

“You were just flaunting your popularity over me! Don’t deny it! Get out before I throw you out.” The grey Pinkie Pie turned away, smacking Pinkie in the face with her tail and regarding her with a sinister look of utter disdain.

“How?”

The grey pony turned back. “How?”

“How do I leave?”

“Shut up. Isn’t it enough that you get to live out there? Actually see more than the inside of your own mind?”

Pinkie frowned. She felt saddened that she seemed to have nothing but enemies in her mind. How lonely she actually was when she reached inside herself and was separated from the friends she knew and loved.

“Wait.” Pinkie called in a soft voice to the grey pony, who had turned away again. “Can you help me?”

“What is this? The great Pinkie Pie needs the help of Grump? Give me one reason I should help you. As far as I’m concerned, you deserve to suffer a bit. The rest of us know nothing but suffering. Oh look, I’m Pinkie Pie and I’m the essence of Joy. Because the others are miserable I get to make all of the friends and live in the waking world.” The other spat mockingly.

Pinkie Pie giggled. “Grump? Is that your name?”

“You find my name funny?”

“Well, yeah! No wonder you aren’t happy! You just need to get a nickname!”

“Easy for you to say, Pinkie! The other got a nickname and you were born along with Joy. Well guess what? Some of us aren’t so lucky, and we aren’t ever wanted back. What good would a nickname do? I get a nickname and another state of mind simply arises but I stay the same. Don’t play me for a fool, you’re the only fool this mind holds.”

“What?” Pinkie grinned.

“Look, just leave. Go back to Joy.” Grump turned to leave, halted, and spun around yet a third time. A clear concern shown in the concrete eyes as she regarded Pinkie. “Who is out right now?”

“Out where?”

“You and I are in here…so that means that she must be out there.”

“Who? What? Out where? Ooh! Do you know how to get out?”

“Get out? Wait a minute…” Grump squinted at Pinkie, her grey nose nearly brushing her brightly colored twin as the former regarded the latter with amount of disgust and interest. “You forgot?

Pinkie cocked her head and squinted in turn. “Forgot what?”

“I would laugh at you…” Grump scowled. “Let me explain. You see, Pinkie, we are states of mind. You, Her, and Me.”

“Who?”

“You.”

“No, the other one.”

“Me.”

“The third one.”

“Quit it! I…ugh. So yeah, there are three of us. We are all states of mind. The body we inhabit, oh how would Twilight put it…is a shell. You have been taking all the time for yourself, so I have time to think. A state of mind must be present in…the shell at all times.”

“What happens if one isn’t? Don’t tell me…we…um…I have no idea.”

“We stop laughing.”

“You don’t laugh.”

“We die, Pinkie.”

“Oh…” Pinkie frowned. “So we stop laughing.”

“Yes, er…no, I mean yes. Anyway, while one state of mind occupies the shell, the rest of us live in these worlds that best fit us.

Pinkie pondered this new bit of information. This made no sense to her, as it was completely insane. Yet there was something to be said for insane theories and ponderings. After all, if the world made nothing but sense, then there would be no room for those ponies who make life interesting and just a bit wild for everypony else. An insane theory, yes, but one that she could handle. However, she did hold a predicament before her: that she was no longer in her own insane world. Joy, as Grump had called it, was behind her. This place, this anger, was her world now. It was the harbor from which hostility found its way into the world, carrying with it unforgivable offences, deep currents of grudges and ill omen. A world through joy and forgiveness into a deep shade of grey that held bitter resentment towards all she held dear. Could it be this is where her family had emerged? Nameless shadows that, like her, had found their way into a different state of mind and taken shape and meaning? If that was so, then why did she have to escape this world? Her mind had taken her back in within herself and into her own state of mind for some reason, and then told her that she must escape. Could that just be her own state of mind? Pinkie threw her head from one shoulder to the other while Grump glared at her, impatient and irritated.

“Well, we can all share then.” Pinkie stated at last.

“Share?” Grump spat. “I do not share. If I get back to the world, I will make sure that Pinkie Pie never laughs or throws another party again, and life will be far better for the both of us. You get to keep giggling, and I don’t have to think about those who laughed at me, because no one will ever want to look at me again, and then there will be no more laughs.”

“You need to lighten up. Just smile!”

Pinkie smiled, Grump frowned.

“Look, Pinkie, you want to get out right? Then you are going to have to do something for me. This world is grey, and I enjoy that. But I cannot regain a place in the world until I have color somewhere in my state of mind. No, you do not count. In the Cave lies color. The color fears the grey and hides away in the black. I hate color. I hate caves. I hate you. You will go into the cave and find the color. Ok?”

“Ok, and then I can go?”

“Yes, then you can go. You are useless dead, so be careful of those within the Cave.”

Pinkie frowned. “What lives in the Cave?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what they look like or what they are. All I know is that they were silent until they found their voice in the sound that water makes as it drops into pools within the silence and the dark. I hate them and their words. Do not let them speak to you.”

Grump wandered off without another word and was soon lost to the grey background, leaving a very confused Pinkie to wonder how color would move.