Introspection

by -Hidden Identity-

Feeling Blue

“I certainly don’t trust this thing.”

“What’s not to trust about it? It’s a sign pointing us where we need to go.”

“That’s what I don’t trust about it.”

“You don’t think this cave would do that to us do you?”

“I…ugh.”

“Oh, right. I remember now.”

“Remember what? You know, never mind. Let’s just keep looking for the Giant’s Room.”

“Shouldn’t we at least try the way the sign is pointing?”

“This is a wild cave, Pinkie. Why would there be a sign?”

“Because it’s also your state of mind and you want to find the room?”

Anger sighed and glanced over at the wall. There was no doubt about its interpretation. The misshaped piece of wood pointed off to the left, down a small duckway. A pair of crudely carven words lazily gave indication to the suggested destination. True, it was the exact location Anger had been searching for, and while the cave was content on shifting itself around, this particular area spoke with silent confidence this was correct. It would be the first time.

“What have we got to lose?” asked Pinkie, with a slight smile.

“Our way.”

“I though we had lost that a while ago.”

“Fine,” Anger huffed, giving a sharp look back at her better half, “we’ll follow the sign. Let’s just see what happens.”

The maze into which the two ventured at that point held within its grasp the ingredients to ensure there would be no escape, and a nature of surreptitious hazards. While each little passage branched out into seventeen more upon its end, there was no guarantee you would ever reach the split. Illusions of easy progression revealed to be slopes, pits and all manner of unpleasant aspects one might wish to avoid in most mazy situations. Some walls stretched off into the blackness, while others revealed opening just out of reach.

“Stay close Pinkie, it could take all the time you have left to get out of here.”

“Have you ever seen this place before?”

“We all end up in the maze eventually. It’s inevitable.”

“What’s the point of this maze, anyway?”

“Annoyances. Little, tiny, infuriating annoyances. Not to mention the color Orange.”

It didn’t need to be said, as the maze said it for them. There was no way to know where they had been or where they were bound. Each passage was either identical to those around it or completely different. Yet for all the oppressive feelings, Pinkie felt strangely at home here. Perhaps it was from the previous instance of a maze during her adventure in her own state of mind. Perhaps it was just because she was Joy and there was some element of that strong enough to counteract the rage a maze such as this could cause. Perhaps it was that she just wasn’t bothered by being lost, perhaps it was the fact that she was no longer in the maze. In fact, she seemed to be in a river. Now how did that happen? She assumed it was a river. It was wet, cold, and moving. Seemed likely for a river to be of those characteristics. Anger was calling for her now. Such language.

“I’m down here, Anger!” Pinkie called out above her. She assumed she had fallen. Her lower half was a bit sore suddenly.

Anger called out to her again in reply. Pinkie’s lexicon became significantly expanded, assuming half of the things her angrier self just said were real words.

A bit of dirt showered itself down upon Pinkie’s face. A cry echoed up from below. Pinkie, still gazing upward, shifted herself three feet to the right and watched the luminescent haze of Anger swiftly travel from high above to low and wet. Pinkie giggled. She could not see Anger’s face, but she stopped once the water started to boil. Without saying another word, Anger picked herself up and started upstream.

“Wait, why go that way?” Pinkie asked, having not bothered to move yet.

“You know what? Shut up!” Anger roared back, “You suggested we take the advice of that stupid sign and look where we are! You’ve caused enough trouble.”

“Wait, this isn’t my fault!” Pinkie replied, “You said we would end up in the maze eventually, right?”

“Yes! I mean no! I mean shut up!” Anger snapped and continued moving forward. Pinkie looked after her for a moment, weighing her options, before joining her grey self down the murky tunnel.

Cold and sadness flowed in abundance through that unnatural river. Here there were no wonders of the cave to distract her. The depths of the cave were cold and lifeless. Nothing, not even the mindset of Anger, should ever have to endure a world such as this.

“Well, she didn’t have to do that. Why did she have to do that? Isn’t right.” Said Anger suddenly.

“What?”

“Oh, you’re still here. Shame. Never mind, just an…impulse. Pinkie, don’t move. Seriously, stop right there.”

“What is it?”

“Impulses within a mindset are dangerous. It’s a mistake in thought. Surely when you were working through your mindset you experiences impulse?”

Pinkie thought back to the maze one of her sisters had constructed for her. To take the passages of that maze in the wrong order resulted in an impulsive thought, which interrupted her progress. Anger must have seen the connection on Pinkie’s face as she just nodded.

“So what do we do now?”

“It depends. Impulses can be a couple of different things. They can either be random and simply placed by the other things that roam this cave, or it could be a step to prevent anything from going forward.”

“I thought my friends had abandoned me. I had never felt so alone.” Pinkie’s eyes were wide with memory.

“I really hate this cave. Can’t have anything go right; everything always has to be so complicated…blue.”

“They didn’t think I was helping. They avoided me. Hmm?” Pinkie slogged her way up to Anger. The latter had her hoof pointing outward. Slowly the luminescent haze moved it’s way upstream. There, at the far end of the passage, just where the water made its grand entrance, sat a blue, shimmering, ball.

“Is that a color?” Pinkie whispered.

Anger gave Pinkie a very slow turn of the head. Pinkie smiled sheepishly. Anger mumbled.

“Alright. I don’t know what this color’s game is, but be careful.”

“Game? What are the rules?”

“I don’t know, Pinkie.” Anger sneered, “I just said I don’t know its game. Colors don’t like to be found, so they try to prevent whoever does find them from actually getting to it.”

“How do you beat it?”

“Every color in this cave has a specific attribute. It will use that to prevent being caught.”

“Ooh! So like yellow didn’t want to be found by us, and kept us from climbing up the slope.”

“Yeah. Still trying to figure that one out.”

“Annoying!” Pinkie gasped.

“Yes, you are. Good job, Pinkie; self-identification is the first step towards improvement.”

“No, I mean it was annoying. At first it was a little windy, then we got annoyed and it got a bit icy, and we kept getting annoyed by little things and they kept getting built up until we couldn’t climb up. There was too much to overcome in its entirety. Ooh, that vein sticking out of your head is dancing.”

Anger sloshed her way up towards elusive color, her pace a steady thumping of forceful hooves against the bottom of the shallow stream. She huffed and heaved while Pinkie watched interested. Then Anger collapsed down into the stream. As the sounds of heavily disturbed water subsided Pinkie could make out the unmistakable sounds of rapid breath associated with tears. Quiet words were lost to the current as they were whispered by Anger into the cold water and carried away to be lost.

“Anger? What’s wrong?” She moved forward as well before a petrifying thought gripped her. “My friends will never see me again. I’ll be lost in here forever. They will leave me. Wait. Where did that come from?”

Anger struck the water with a hoof, yelling out through the veil of tears she wove upon her face. “Everyone hates me. I could never fit in. Nothing is ever pleased to see me.”

The faces of her friends flowed through Pinkie, smiling and happy before turning dark and tear-streaked. Then they faded.

“No! I won’t let you leave!” Pinkie cried out, her own vision blurred. With strength she had never had to use, the joyful mindset slogged forward past the still weeping Anger and towards the evasive goal. She saw her name erased from the memories of her friends. She saw the element of laughter turned over to some other pony. The river picked up speed. Anger screamed behind her, snapping her out of a new stupor as the temperature of the water mimicked the grave. A swell knocked her balance asunder, and all was black.

“Hey! Wake it on up!”

Pinkie felt a slap on her cheek and unwelcome light pour through her waking eyes. The sounds of a river could be heard of in the distance.

“Hey! Pinkie! You still with me?”

“Yeah, ow. Why’d you slap me?”

“Well you sure weren’t waking up by asking you to. Thought I might have lost you there.”

“What happened?”

“Something took you out. Happens with states of mind like us; we encounter a new thought we can’t really comprehend because the contrast is to great.”

“What?”

“You couldn’t handle it.”

“Oh. Those are some long words.”

“Yeah, well we can’t all have the pleasure of ignorance.”

“What?”

“Exactly. The good news is we now have a color.”

“Yay!” Pinkie exclaimed as she rose, “where is it?”

“Already in. Notice anything about my coat?” Anger asked, turning.

“Hmm. You got it cut! Just kidding, it’s not just grey. There’s a bit of…pink!”

“Not my favorite color.” Anger sighed. “Anything is better than this grey I have to live with. The cold leaves as color enters, just like I said.”

“So blue made us sad?”

“Yep. Seems like it.”

Pinkie frowned at the thought. “Why would sadness be found within your state of mind? Shouldn’t there be one for feeling sad?”

Anger’s slightly appeased expression faded. She averted her gaze as she replied. “There was a state of mind of sadness, sorrow, and all things that make you feel, well, blue. She’s not here anymore.”

“What, she left?”

“She died.”

“A state of mind can die?”

“Oh certainly. If a state of mind isn’t used enough then it dies off. That is the reason why you say you need to get out. It’s not that you won’t be trapped. You will die.”

“Oh.” Pinkie thought of the faces of her friends without her. “Wait. There have been times where I know I’ve been there but I’ve been sad. How does that work?”

“It’s because our sad state of mind became spread across the remaining states of mind and can be a part of any one of us. It’s the reason blue is a color here in Anger.”

“So she died but she didn’t die off.”

“Right. Pinkamena said it was because she couldn’t handle being sad all the time. I say it’s because she hung herself.”

Anger stopped talking, still refusing to look at Pinkie. Pinkie felt two small tears form in her eyes. It hung on the brink of falling away, and seemed to watch the pink pony. Pinkie blinked. The tears fell. She sniffed and smiled.

“One color found. What are we waiting for, let’s go find another!”

Anger waited a moment, watching Pinkie canter down the tunnel without having the slightest idea of where she was going. Lucky for her she was right. Anger smiled at the newfound warmth she felt course through her; even it was only a small amount. Strange, how much of a toll the mind can take on the mindset. Anger nodded at the slight color now found within her. At least now she didn’t completely blend in with the cave. She was getting so tired of this place. She wanted to get out and see her friends; after all, she was on a clock. Wait too long and she’d be stuck in here forever. In a way, she almost felt bad for not telling Pinkie the whole truth… almost.

Comments

[-Hidden Identity-]

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Well, you're not wrong. There is something more, however. Something else is hiding away in the recesses of her mind. Now what could that be?