14. Just a Figment
14. Just a Figment
It was dark. Cold and dark. My skin was numb, my eyes couldn’t see anything. Nothing but a black void and numbness.
I screamed, and my ears definitely still worked. No sight or sound, but I could hear just fine.
It was quiet at first. After I screamed I kind of ran out of ideas of what to do. So I just sat there, waiting and thinking.
I don’t know how long I sat there. It was impossible to tell. Moving my body didn’t help, so I started singing a song.
I forget how many songs I went through, or what order they were in. I know a lot. My mouth never got tired, so I just kept singing, waiting for something to happen.
Then, after lots of verses of lots of different songs, they started mimicking me. I'm still not exactly sure who “they” were, though. The voices sounded just like mine, except farther away. I’m pretty sure they weren’t echoes, but I guess I’ll never know for sure.
I don’t know how long that went on, either. I ran out of things to sing, so it must have been a really long time.
When I stopped singing, they stopped too. Only for a moment. They started singing their own songs after that.
Now, normally I’m really good at songs. Singing and lyrics and everything. Except I couldn’t really memorize these ones that easily. The words sounded so strange. Even now I barely remember bits of them. Stuff about “swallowing anything evil” and “seeing for miles” and all sorts of silly gibberish.
Every time I tried to sing along the words stuck in my throat, or I would get one line right and then the rest would come out wrong, or my voice would crack and it would be off pitch.
Then, I was gasping for breath, dragging myself out of a pool of water. I coughed, and I could feel my throat and lungs burn.
It turns out I was in Whitetail Woods. They aren’t as bad as the Everfree Forest, obviously, but there wasn’t anypony to give me a ride. So I had to walk back here. And, well, here we are.
“And that’s how I got my cutie mark.” Pinkie Pie smiled, but it was much more forced than her usual toothy grin. “Maybe someday I’ll tell you how I got out of the mirror pool.”
“That’s not funny, Pinkie Pie,” Fluttershy said.
Pinkie Pie shrugged. “Well, you know, it was worth a shot.”
“Wait, where’d ya get the cloak then?” Applejack asked.
“Oh, that. I made it out of tree bark and grass.” Pinkie Pie flashed another strained smile. “Needed to practice my sewing.”
“I’m so sorry.” Twilight tightened her hug. Her face still rested on Pinkie Pie’s lap, and her tears had thoroughly soaked Pinkie Pie’s coat. Neither the discomfort of the position or the dampness impeded her hug. “I didn’t mean— I didn’t want to— I—”
“It’s okay Twilight.” Pinkie Pie patted Twilight’s back. She had been rubbing it throughout her story. “I already forgave you. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“How can you say that! I could’ve— I almost—”
“But you didn’t, silly. So stop worrying about it,” Pinkie Pie said softly.
The front door opened and shut, just loudly enough to catch everypony’s attention.
“Well I didn't find her,” Rainbow Dash said as she walked in. “Did I miss any—” she froze as she stepped into the living room. “Pinkie Pie?” She turned to the clone and back to Pinkie Pie. Her eyes darted back and forth another time, then finally settled on Pinkie Pie.
“Hey Rainbow Dash! I was just telling everypony how I got my—” Pinkie Pie’s smile dimmed slightly. “I mean, how I got out of the mirror pool. You didn’t really miss much.”
Dash opened her mouth, but quickly closed it. She turned to the right. Applejack was the closest pony to her.
“Am I the only one freaked out by this? I thought she was…”
“Trust me, we all felt the same way,” Applejack said.
“And…” Rainbow Dash covered her mouth with a hoof. Her voice was still perfectly audible in the small room. “And how do we know it’s the actual Pinkie Pie? I mean, she came out of a mirror pool, and we already screwed up once.”
“She’s a little too, well, lively ta be a clone. Besides, the clone didn’t exactly have any of Pinkie Pie’s memories, and she does.”
“Yeah, I told everybody about that time we improved the Grand Galloping Gala.” Pinkie Pie giggled. “At the diner, you joked that your favorite type of donut was plain because you could eat it the fastest.”
Rainbow Dash tackled Pinkie Pie, and the two of them fell backwards, dragging Twilight with them.
“Pinkie Pie! I knew it was you.”
Pinkie smiled. “Do I get a welcome-back hug too? I mean, I left and came back, and I’ve never had a hug before, so this is probably a good time for one, right?”
“Uhm,” Rarity paused. She had been mulling over what to call the clone for a while, and she still hadn’t come up with anything. She settled for half of Pinkie Pie’s name. It was mostly out of habit, but the symbolism of it was obvious to everyone except the clone. “Pinkie, this may not be the best time for a question like that,” she whispered.
Twilight’s hooves tightened again. “Why did you bring it back, Pinkie Pie? You could have just left it out there and nopony would have noticed.”
“Twilight, you know that isn’t true.”
“It is true. I just want it to be gone so we can forget this ever happened.”
“I know you don’t mean that.” Pinkie Pie rubbed Twilight’s shoulder. “I guess it’s my fault, though. I was gone a pretty long time, by the looks of it. Speaking of…” Pinkie Pie stood up. Rainbow Dash moved aside without protest, but Twilight clung to Pinkie Pie’s midriff, dangling slightly off the floor.
“Twilight, I’m happy to see you too, but I need to talk with Pinkie for a bit.”
“Pinkie Pie, I’m just so sorry. Please…please don’t leave me.”
Pinkie Pie smiled. “I’m not leaving, silly. I never did, and I’m not going to now.” She wormed out of Twilight’s grip, and turned to her clone. “Come on, we’ll talk in the kitchen.”
Pinkie didn’t say anything at first. Just watching Pinkie Pie bake took all her attention. The way she moved from one part of the room to the other, the way she poured things, the way she bounced the ingredients from one spot to the other. It was effortless and mesmerizing and perplexing all at once.
Then, before she could even realize it was over, Pinkie Pie was pulling a tray of muffins out of the oven and piling them on a tray.
“Hungry?” Pinkie Pie put a muffin on the table. It was still warm, and the chocolate chips studding its surface were still gooey. “Go on. I’ve got to go give some to everypony else.”
Pinkie Pie was gone in a flash, and Pinkie was left alone with her muffin. It was delicious. Every part of it worked together and each bite had a little bit of each part. It was like that food in the restaurant she had gone to with Rainbow Dash, deliberate and yummy and careful. Not like the food she made at all.
Pinkie Pie walked back into the kitchen, her smile considerably fuller. She sat down across from Pinkie and took a bite of one of the muffins still on the tray. “Pretty good, right? Chocolate makes you feel better, it’s a scientific fact. That sounds like a fun job, doesn’t it? Chocolate scientist. Hanging out with the butterscotch scientists and caramel scientists.”
“I guess,” Pinkie muttered.
“What’s the matter? Do you need milk?”
“Twilight was right. I’m terrible at parties. Out of town, on the road, you calmed me down, but you didn’t say she was wrong.” Pinkie took another bite of her muffin. It was still delicious, but that only confirmed the truth. “The test was supposed to see if I was a good Pinkie Pie, but it didn’t work. You’re still better at it. I'm just a…”
Pinkie Pie poked her own muffin, but didn’t take a bite out of it. “I have to apologize to you.”
Pinkie’s ear flicked. “For what?”
“I thought that a notepad with some drawings and some names was all it would take for you to be me. I thought that I could…I dunno, dress you up as me, that nopony would notice the difference and I could use you as a way to fix all the problems I was having.
“I could have helped you, but I was too selfish. I was so concerned with helping myself that I didn’t see you as anything but a…a tool.” Pinkie Pie looked up from her muffin, her smile completely faded. “I’m sorry. I tried to make you something you’re not. I know how stressful that is, how depressing, but I didn’t give a second thought to forcing it on another pony. This whole thing is all my fault.”
“So Twilight was right…”
“Well, she was right about you not being a good Pinkie Pie.”
The clone flinched at the words.
Pinkie Pie draped a hoof across the other Pinkie’s foreleg. “But me and her both forgot the rest of it. You’re a bad Pinkie Pie, but that’s a good thing. Nopony should ever have to be anyone other than themselves.”
“So, if I’m not Pinkie Pie, who am I?” the clone asked.
Pinkie Pie smiled, and this time it was genuine and toothy. “That’s the best part! You can be whoever you like.”
“But I don’t…I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“No one said you have to do it alone, silly.”
Pinkie took a bite of her muffin. “It sounds like you thought about this a lot.”
“Yeah, well, I had plenty of time to think about it on the walk over,” Pinkie Pie said. “Wasn’t a lot else to do, ya know?”
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4637994
So, should we be charging Pinkie with possibly kidnapping all these clones into Equestria with no prior knowledge of their consent?
Huh, I just realized - we've been spending so much time talking about and/or debating the moral ramifications of Twilight's actions, we haven't even mentioned the moral ramifications of Pinkie's actions. Which, depending on how you interpret it, could be dark in a whole slew of different ways.
P.S. to author - are we taking up too much of your comment feed? I'll just stop here if you like.
Whhhy! why is there no moooore?
4638431
Depends, should we be charging mothers with kidnapping for bringing children into the world with no prior knowledge of their consent?
The clones were implied to be a blank slate, and the only thing that seems to happen in the mirror pool seems to be singing. Even if they did come from a different place, they still have the ability to go back to the mirror pool.
And then Twilight barged in and blasted her.
The end
So it was Pinkie that managed to extricate, be ejected, have an incompatibility with the mirror pool itself? I wonder if its some form of security function, or literally the mirror pools power is to make copies, duplicating a limited range of functions, meaning a far more detailed construct, origional, cuases problems. Like trying to upload a user to Tron, or Reboot, and having the brain capacity crush the mainframes processing to a halt, leaving the offending routine to be flushed?
4638571
That goes with the creating life theory, which is one of the darkest ones.
Especially after the 1st clone, and Pinkie has had a chance to interact with it, she goes back to create more clones. Pinkie isn't nearly prepared to take care of any of these clones.
And mothers CAN be charged with neglect. This would be a HORRIFICALLY irresponsible case of the creation of life, which I believe should be treated just as seriously as the taking of it.
Which is why I take Twilight's comment about sending the clones back where they came from and run with it. It's the interpretation that doesn't scream "Oh my gosh, the mane 6 are horrible people." After all, they are supposed to be exemplars, symbols of the best kinds of people.
Ok, Rarity? Needs a bitch slap.
Twilight? Needs a bitch slap from Celestia. With a baseball bat.
Still with the 'It'? Right in front of the Neo Pinkie? Ugh. She's been cruel, selfish, disloyal, dishonest and I sure as fuck didn't see her spreading any laughter. Tears, but no laughter.
I really wonder what Pinkie would have done if she'd been watching when Twilight emotionally assaulted the Neo Pinkie.
4638644
I'm not ever going to assume people are exemplary just because they're supposed to be.
Pinkie had every intention of taking care of her clones, she just didn't know what she was getting into. Sure, mothers in real life may go through the same thing, but that doesn't mean they're bad people, just ignorant. And only intent is a possible charge in court, not ignorance.
The mistake Twilight made was not thinking of the ponies as ponies. That sort of thinking enables horrible things, like a lot of the horror stories you hear about WWII, and animal abuse.
Pinkie thought of the other Pinkies as being ponies. She thought of them as equivalent to herself, and she was fully prepared to take care of them. Heck, she probably could figure out how to take care of them. It was just that the town and all of her friends didn't want that many Pinkie Pies to exist. Heck, even Pinkie Pie didn't want that many Pinkie Pies to exist, but the clones forced her hoof.
So.
I think I hate you.
Started and finished what is currently written of this fic today, and I gotta say it's incredibly sad, but I'm happy the real Pinkie Pie is back. That being said, Twilight needs to face some serious consequences for what she's done here. At this point, we can be reasonably certain that the clones are alive enough to feel and think, and she unknowingly or not sent them away back into the mirror pool it looks like- when she intended to more or less kill them. Then she pretty much treated the remaining clone like dirt for the entirety of the fic, and all but threatened to kill her too. Finally, when the real Pinkie Pie comes back, she and most everypony else is just ready and willing to have her wander the wilderness to die.
At least the other four out of six made somewhat of an effort to not completely reject and/or hate the clone. You've done a fantastic job at making Twilight so thoroughly despicable in this fic, that I can't help but to want her taken down several pegs by Pinkie, Rainbow(who was the only pony to make an honest effort not to completely shun the clone for the bulk of the story), and Celestia. I wouldn't mind some prison time for all she's done either. Sigh. This is a very well written story, I just hope for some kind of happy ending for the Pinkie-clone at the very least. Too many sads otherwise.
4638798 That's... harsh...
4638924
Not even dirt, she dehumanized her the entire time by calling her an "it". She honestly needs to be SMACKED.
So were those intentional references to The Who, or just an unlikely coincidence? (Pinkie Townshend?)
Now I want to write a fanfic about this fanfic. About Pinkie's clone's future.
Would that be okay? I don't wanna copy or anything. This was just an amazing fanfic. Wow. :)
4639237
Not necessarily. "You can go back once" could mean you only get to use the spell one time, but it could also mean that you can't cast the spell while you are in the past. That is to say, if you want to go back two days, you can't go back one day and then go back an additional day from there.
Going by the way MLP magic works, that would actually make a lot more sense. Spells generally seem to be some kind of formulas or instructions for making magic do one specific thing - you can write it down on paper and a unicorn who reads it will be able to cast it given sufficient training and talent, even if he or she is unfamiliar with it, which suggests a spell is mainly just information. It would be kinda strange if one just stopped working for a particular pony after one try. Kinda like a math equation you could only solve once, or a poem you can only recite one time. I mean, there's handwaving magic, and then there's plain not playing by the established rules.
Besides, she could just ask Celestia to go back for her, or even teach Rarity how to do it.
Anyway, my point is that I just don't see Twilight not trying any damn spell she can think of that has even a slight chance of getting Pinkie back. But then again, when I read something depressing I usually start to regard it as a problem that needs to be solved rather than an emotional experience, so maybe I'm just not in the right mindset for this fic.
4638798 Since one goal of writing is to make readers feel strongly, then that must mean I'm doing something right
4639597 Definitely intentional
4639635 I'm always alright with people being inspired by my ideas as long as they credit me
Of course, there's lots of fics like this that reinterpret that episode, so I'm not sure how much of a plot you could squeeze out of it.
4634454 4634485 4639605 4639724 While I am flattered that this story is provoking such strong reactions, and I always enjoy reading comments, please try and keep things civil. I have a "no deletion" policy when it comes to comments, but I'll make an exception if it means stopping a flame war.
Man, I was wondering for the last 13 chapters when this would finally happen.
Someone stating concretely, to her face, that SHE IS NOT PINKIE (she isn't), and that she needs to decide who she WANTS to be (she's still SOMEONE).
Also, everyone telling Twilight it's not her fault is lying, she's the one who made the spell and decided to use it in that test of her own design after deciding not to figure out what exactly the clones are. And lying about that isn't helping.
And of course Twilight's attempted solutions were all terrible and cruel and useless.
I think I dislike everyone in this story except Pinkie Pie, Pinkie Clone, and Applejack (edit: and Rainbow Dash).
I was worried about the title of this chapter; that it would refer to Ms Pie herself.
My worry has been quelled.
hi hi
Pinkie Pie's description of her time on the other side is... haunting. A fate I can scarcely imagine, yet the story compels me to try.
Also: for some reason, her story about where she got her cloak leaves me to think she's still hiding something.
4638727
If (if) she ended up creating life, then she made a terrible mistake in not understanding her actions, much like Twilight if Twilight made a terrible mistake in not understanding her actions.
And Pinkie WASN'T thinking of the Pinkies as a bunch of real, other ponies. She was treating them as herself in a whole bunch of different bodies. She wanted to have fun everywhere, after all. Like they were all just one pony at the end of the day. And she certainly wasn't preparing to take care of them, or have every intention of taking care of them.
And that's not even all of it. Twilight was acting quickly in an attempt to resolve something that was deemed a crisis situation. Pinkie did what she did just because she wanted to have fun.
And all of that is ignoring the giant ethical mess around the concept of cloning and creating clones in the first place.
Am I the only one who f*****g HATES Twilight in this?
Well, I would have to say that Pinkie didn't mean ill by using the mirror pool-- Twilight, though.. Her anger stems, I think, from her inability to face her own actions and admit they were wrong. The clones were blasted, without seeking any higher authority, simply because they were annoying the town. Sure, they were mixing things up and wrecking them, but so do the CMC and you don't fry them with lasers for it. Calling the clone an 'it' and trying physically to stop the real Pinkie from even touching it reeks of sheer denial.
And, let's face it, as a personal student of the princess and of magic (and all the ethics that should be associated with it,) Twilight is not an apprentice baker who already has trouble understanding some adult concepts and responsibilities. Then again, mass brainwashing (want it, need it) apparently isn't punishable in Equestria. Do they have any code of ethics whatsoever with their magic?
Fluttershy's reaction last chapter, about just letting 'it' dissapear so that everything 'would be okay' stings more than the others (with the exception of Twilight.) I'd expect it from Rarity, who's a bit of a diva. I'd even expect it from AJ, who's reactionary about some things. But kindness, turning away what is essentially a wounded being? Ouch.
So Pinkie really is back, interesting... I feel having Pinkie and Pinkie Pie is going to get really confusing really fast though. Also, Pinkie and/or Celestia really needs to talk/beat some sense into Twilight and the others about how they've been treating Pinkie Clone...
4641156 *Glances at other comments* Nope
4641191 Except Twilight is wounded too, just in a different way.
Well, this ended up wrapping up better then I originally thought. Kinda nice. Unlike most people, I get where Twilight is coming from. After all, she tends to go to far and lesson zero is proof that when she makes a mistake, she tends to make it into the something way more awful then it needs to be. She lost control and her despair lead to her treating Pinkie-clone terribly. Yet I can still sympathize with Twilight. I feel sorry for her in so many ways. I just hope we get a happy ending. Twilight doesn't need a slap in the face, I think she just needs a sit down with a really long hug.
4641127 In my personal idea, clones share a consciousness- depending on similarity to the original- with the original. For example, there's the twin sort of knowing what the other is thinking.
4641382
Twilight is wounded herself with her own stupid pride and arrogance. Pinkie-2 is wounded because most of her friends treated her poorly and one big, purple jerk deliberately tried to hurt her as much as possible. The only one who tried to be a decent pony was Rainbow, which is just Bizzaro World given that RD is usually the one making WORSE!
Twilight's pain is less than she's earned. Pinkie-2's pain is far more than she deserves.
I really hope that Pinkie-1 rips Twilight a new one.
4642100 None of those posts contained criticism of the story--they were deleted for being rude to other users. Again, I'm glad that people feel strongly about the story, but name-calling and belittling others' opinions is not cool.
Incidentally, that's also why I'm deleting your comment.
4641490 Agreed. Twilight over the course of the series and this fic has earned a metric ton of ire and anger from me.
Lovely story. That said, this turn out seems a bit short and a bit of a cop-out. I was fully expecting and ready for Celestia to become involved, and more things to come about from the clone realizing things rather than Pinkie Pie just showing up mysteriously. I'm hoping a reason and a good one for that comes up; if not, oh well I guess. I had at first expected Pinkie Pie to be some other pony from town, thus beginning some sort of learning experience for Pinkie. But, it seems this story only has a couple chapters left.
Hmmm
Uuuuugh, first person. Few things annoy me more.
I object. We were just about to get to the interesting stuff and suddenly BOOM, Pinkie Pie's back, all on her own. There were so many potential ways to do this, but the one you picked feels like a shortcut. It essentially killed the mood of the entire story for me. I might have liked this route more if there'd been some kind of hint that it was going to happen, but no, it's just there, whammo. All the potential that this story had has been effectively skipped over, just like that.
And to think, things were just about to get interesting...
Did the clone's cutie mark fade now that she accepts she DOESN'T HAVE TO BE Pinkie Pie?
i have to agree, it seems rather lame that Pinkie Pie managed to return on her own. it would have been better if Twilight had visited the pool and helped.
7201955 I really think it's more that the Pool just spat her out. Non Clones don't taste good to a cloning pool, you know.
I hope Pinkie Pie treats Pinkie as her child and tells everypony off for being mean to her.