Chapter 1
I’m not really sure how many ponies remember their very very first birthday.Some ponies might just barely remember their first birthday party; the lights, the cake, the games, the confusion, the presents...especially the presents, but not many ponies remember their very first birthday, the one that comes a year before the first party. That was always weird to me, why not have a party on the very first birthday? Maybe they didn’t think it was a good day, I mean, everypony would be tired, and at least two of the ponies would be very sticky, and the birthday pony wouldn’t have any friends yet to invite to the party! Anyways, where was I...oh yeah, my first birthday.
I remember the day perfectly. I remember the dark, and the quiet, and I remember the light coming for me, and the voice coming along with it. I was scared, at first, but I pushed my way into the light, following the voice.It was muffled and sorta echoy at first but as I got closer I could finally hear exactly what she was saying.
“-not to be scared at the prospect of being doubly mared” Just as she finished speaking, I opened my eyes, finding myself staring into another set of eyes, just like mine. These eyes were blue, and surrounded by pink, and the look they gave looked...confused.
“I...I think this one’s broken” The pink pony said, drawing away, just enough for me to spot the rest of the pink ponies all clustered around us. They were all staring at me, and I didn’t really like it. My wings buzzed gently against my side as the room became quiet. Several faces,all pink, looked at me with those same bright blue eyes. Finally a voice broke out from somewhere in the corner of the cave. “She’s not a Pinkie!”
Blinking, I tried find where that shout had come from, just as another one rang through the air. “Yeah! She’s broken!”
Suddenly the mob of pink ponies began to cry out “Broken Pinkie! Broken Pinkie!” They swarmed forward, like one single pink cotton candy mass looking to gobble me up.I did the only thing I could really think of doing; I took off.With my wings buzzing I jumped straight up in the air
“Get her!” “We have to fix her, I’ll get some paint!” “Yeah! And I’ll get something to pin her wings down!” “Fix her! Fix her!”
Several ponies jumped trying to catch me, but I was already off, out of the hole in the wall, through the brambles behind it, and into the forest.
I don’t know how long I was flying, but I eventually had to land. My wings were tired and stiff, and achey. “ Not used to this” I managed to puff as I settled back down on the forest floor.
I started to walk, not quite sure where I was going. Why had they attacked me like that? Were all ponies supposed to be pink and poofy? What was so different about me? I looked down at myself...I definitely wasn’t pink, unless you considered white a really really really light shade of pink. I suppose you could if you really put your mind to it, but then you’d have to consider it a really really really light shade of almost every color...which it kinda was. I plucked a bit of my mane out, to get a look at it a bit better. Yellow, most certainly not pink, no matter what way you tried to look at it. I sighed and sat down on my haunches, giving my wings a little shuffle. That was another thing, I realized then, none of the pink ponies had wings! Are wings weird? Was I the only pony ever to have wings? What if there was some author of my life mandating that I had to have wings! Or there might even be a fanclub somewhere that got all mad because wings were on my back! They’d say it was the end of everything and start screaming at the one guy to take the wings back and then they’d blame him for everything bad that happened after that!...No that was just silly.
As I began to consider the possibilities these limbs could bring, I began to feel a rumbling from the ground beneath my hooves. I listened, super hard. It was faintl at first but it started growing steadily louder, a steady pounding of hooves and chanting. “Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun!”
With a little yelp I quickly jumped into the nearest tree I could find as the pink mob of the ponies that had attacked me went past, some bouncing, some running, some cartwheeling, one riding another and smacking her behind with a stick. I waited until the very last pony had passed by before I lowered myself from the tree. Whatever was happening that was so fun, I wanted no part of it. Those Pink Ponies were crazy! Turning abruptly I headed deeper into the woods.
I wandered through the woods for ages. The sun rose and set several time as I walked, I tried to eat some of the plants I found...but many of them didn’t really taste very good. There was this one berry I tried that made me throw up, so I tried to steer clear of berries after that! Time had a funny way of passing in the woods; one moment could pass really really super slow, so slow that you could watch the grass and leaves slloooowly bend one way as the wind picked up. Other times, it passed super fast! One day seemed to shoot by so fast it was like one end of the sky was playing a game of catch with the sun! But during that whole time I had seen no other ponies in the woods.
That all changed the day I found the orchard...which was...well..today. I had gotten to a part of the woods I had never been to before, a place where the trees thinned and I could see the sky a lot better. It was still dark out when I found it so I got a nice little view of the stars, and the moon, and the orchard! I knew these trees were different, they didn’t look like any trees I had seen back in the woods; their leaves were a different shape, they didn’t have any animals making noises from them, and they were just...oddly straight, no broken or weirdly pointed branches on them. So I got real curious and started to get closer. At first i thought the trees were filled with more of those berries, like the disgusting ones that made me all barfy, but upon closer inspection I realized these things weren’t squishy enough to be the ucky berries. I hopped into the tree, and settled down on one of the branches, picking one of the red things at random. I sniffed, then cautiously I took a bite. The taste that washed over my tongue was by far the most delicious thing I had ever tasted! Before long the red thing was completely gone, so I grabbed another...and another. I was so busy munchin’ and crunchin’, I hardly noticed the sun come up, and I certainly didn’t hear the hoofsteps. I did feel the tree suddenly shake though when the hooves hit it’s trunk. The hard to chew cores of my breakfast fell first.
“What in tarna-!” I heard from below just as I lost my grip on the branch and followed the cores...well not exactly follow. The cores landed all nice and neat in a bucket, I landed on the pony who kicked the tree! We both sat there groanin’ for a bit. I got up as quick as I could, looking at the pony who had kicked the tree. She wasn’t pink either! Ha! I knew the pink ponies were weird! But whether she was pink or not didn’t really matter to me in that moment. Ponies, at least the ponies I had met, were strange creatures that probably wanted to tear my wings off! I tried to bolt, and I got a few trees away before I heard a “Hold on there missy!” Something caught my tail and before I could do a thing I was yanked backwards. The orange pony was quick to tie my hooves together wrapping the rest of the rope around my barrel, keeping my wings pinned. I whined and squirmed as she looked down at me, keeping one of her front hooves on my tummy to keep me down, the other one grabbing her hat off the grass. She seemed to be thinking really hard about something; she was getting all frowny, and her eyes were darting all over, from my face, to the tree I had been snacking in, to the forest, to my butt, and then back to my face again. She chewed her lip for a second or two before she finally started talking.
“Now listen here, sugar cube. Ah’m right sorry for hogtying ya, but ah cain’t just let ya leave without a word.” She talked funny, not like the pink ponies at all! Wait...did she just say she’d let me go if I said a word?
“Sassafras! That's your word, time to lemme out!” I piped up brightly. The orange pony smiled and gently patted my head.
“Not what Ah meant, sugarcube. Ah got someplace Ah wanna show ya first. Ah want to introduce ya to a friend of mine so’s she can ask ya a few questions.” I frowned...new ponies made me nervous. This orange funny talkin’ pony seemed nice and all, but I didn’t really know if I could trust her friend. With that in mind, I asked the only real question that mattered at the moment.
“Will it be fun there?”
The look on her face was exactly the same one that was on mine when I tried to eat that slimy green plant a few days ago by the river.
“Ah cain’t promise that, but it should be...somethin’” Somethings weren’t always good, but I decided to risk it. After all, just cause the orange pony didn’t promise it’d be fun didn’t mean it wasn’t gonna be!
“Okay!” I said happily, hopping up and putting all four of my bound hooves on the ground. I tippyhoofed towards the gate I had hopped over earlier this morning. “Lets go!”
The orange pony chuckled “Now hold on there, lemme untie ya!”
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I had never ever ever thought I’d ever see a place like Ponyville. Places that were made of wood but weren’t trees, ponies dressed in funny hats and robes coming out to grab a paper, ponies with stands selling funny shaped plants, and just all the ponies in general! Ponies with pointy things on their heads, ponies with wings like mine, ponies with hats, ponies with no hats, tall ponies and short ponies, young ponies, old ponies, ponies riding things, ponies carrying things, ponies all over the place! Applejack (that was my orange pony’s name, Applejack, she introduced herself after we left!) lead me through the town, eventually coming to a stop to the biggest tree in town. I never seen a tree like that one either, trees weren’t supposed to have doors on them! Was it one of the buildings trying to be a tree, or a tree trying to be a building? I wasn’t sure...maybe I’d ask later.
Applejack knocked her hoof against the door of the tree, then we waited...after a few moments she knocked again and again we waited. When she lifted her hoof to knock a third time, the door burst open. A grumpy little lizard with a blue night cap on glared up at Applejack. “AJ, do you have any idea what time it is! It’s barely light out!”
I have never ever seen anything as cute as this lizard thing in all my life! I shot passed Applejack and lifted him up, giving him a cuddle. “Daww! Cute cranky lizard thingy!”
Applejack took the little guy from my hooves and explained “That...would be the reason why ah’m here this early.” She explained. I blinked and tilted my head to one side.
“...I’ll go get Twilight.”
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And that brings us allllll the way up to now! Twilight, or as I like to call her, big-word-mcgee, had taken one look at me before she dragged me down into her basement and started poking at me, and asking me questions, and hooking me up to weird beeping machines. Applejack was right, it wasn’t very fun,but it was something. All the stuff in that room made so many funny noises and blinked but the purple pony wouldn’t let me play with anything! Sorta fun...but not really, it was hard to explain. After a while Spike, the little cranky lizard thing that I had met at the door, knocked on the door again. “Twilight...umm…” He glanced at me...he had a funny look on his face. Was there something on my face?...Well there was...one of those sticky suction cups from the scribble machine, but that wasn't all that strange since I was down here.
He looked up at Twilight and pointed straight up to the ceiling. I looked up too, just to try to catch a glimpse at what he was pointing at. It must’ve gone, but Twilight seemed to understand his meaning way better than I did...either that or she had x-ray vision...that’d be really cool!
“You’re going to have to wait here, okay?” She told me. I huffed and slowly sank back into my chair, next to the scribbling machine. The unicorn walked out and quietly shut the door behind her. It didn’t take too long for me to get bored. This weird tingly feeling in my ears seemed to be telling me something...The longer I looked at the door the unicorn and the lizard had just left out of the harder the tingling got. There was somethin’ going on that I needed to figure out. So..keeping as quiet as possible, I got up from the chair, and scooted my way over to the door. I pressed my ear to the wood, muffled voices reaching my ear from the other side.
“-if I could, I wouldn’t” Said a voice I immediately identified as Twilight. A new voice was quick to answer her
“What?! But you said if we found another one-” the raspy voice was silenced by Twilight’s.
“I said if we found another one we’d send her back, but she’s not like them! The magic of the mirror pool copied Pinkie’s genome the first few times with 95% accuracy! The others were almost exactly like her, she’s...not.”
“I don’t get it…” The raspy voice admitted after a pause.
“Whenever a pony is cloned like that it’ll make an almost exact copy. If one of the copies copied itself there’d be a much higher chance of mutation, and the copies just kept making more of themselves. It’s quite likely that her DNA was damaged to such a degree that the pool had to substitute the missing strands with any residual pieces it had in it.”
“...Am Ah the only one who understood none of that?” Asked Applejack’s drawl. Twilight huffed. “It means, she’s not a clone, she’s closer to a blood relative or maybe even-”
“I want to see her.” That voice was new...it sounded familiar but I really couldn’t place it. She sounded...strange, like she was doing a wobbly dance between excited, nervous, and scared….there had to be a word for that...nervoscaricited...wait they were talking again!
“Are...are you sure?” Twilight asked “I mean both of you might sh-”
“I’m sure” The seriousness didn’t suit her voice at all. It was like trying to fit a round peg into triangle shaped hole, or a fish trying to fly...though flying fish did that so maybe that wasn’t a good example. Hoofsteps started to draw closer to the door! I was gonna be found out! With a squeak and a buzz of my wings I quickly returned to my chair and pretended to be looking at the scribbling machine’s trail of paper. The door opened quietly, the hinges squeaking softly. I looked up as Twilight walked back in.
“Hiya!” I said cheerfully, trying to pretend like I hadn’t heard what they were talking about. Twilight looked nervous, quietly rubbing the back of her head with her hoof.
“Uh..Hi...So...you know how I promised to introduce you to the rest of my friends?” I nodded in response. She gulps “Well...one of them wanted to meet you right now” She shuffled her hooves for a moment before she slowly stepped out of the way of the door. What slowly made it’s way inside made my insides freeze. The poofy pink mane, the bright blue eyes, the pink fur, and the three balloons on her flank were unmistakable; I had been found by one of the pink ones! I was so scared I couldn’t move, even as the pink pony approached, step by step, ready to pounce on me! She took a deep breath and said, in a shakey voice. “I’m sorry for missing your birthday!” She leaps forward suddenly, wrapping her forelegs around me.
“I mean what kinda a pony am I! I missed my own family’s birthday! Her very first birthday! I shoulda been there with balloons and streamers, and cake, and punch, and more cake, and-”
“But you were there! You were there a buncha times! There were, like, a whole herd of yous all squeezed into that little itty bitty cave!”
“Nononono! That wasn’t me! That was me! And...oh this is so confusing.”
“Tell me about it” Said the blue winged pony standing in the doorway.
Well it all started when I got out of the poo-!” Both the pink mare and I began to explain at once We blinked and looked at each other.
"Maybe you should explain" We said at once, yet again. "No you!...Hehe, it's like an echo. Wooo...wooo..." There was a slight pause before Spike muttered “Yeah...that’s not creepy at all…”
“Why don’t we start over?” The pink mare suggested.
“Okay! Lets see...I was sitting here, and you can come back in, and I can almost p-”
“Nope, that’s not what I meant! Here, lemme start” She stepped back “I’m Pinkie Pie and I’m your big sister!”
“Well technically speaking.” Twilight said, taking a step forward “She has a little over half of your genes, so a much closer comparison, family-wise, would make you her mo-” In a flash the blue pony darted forward and slapped her hoof over Twilight’s mouth.
“Ix-nay, Twilight, Ix-nay!”
I glance at Pinkie and whisper “Why is Twilight talking about pants?” Pinkie’s answer was a quiet shrug, before offering her hoof. I looked at her, then at her hoof, then back at her.
“Are you crazy?” I asked, truly and utterly astonished by her. She looked a bit nervous again, slowly putting her hoof down. “W-what?” She squeaked. Did I really need to explain this to her? I mean it was kinda obvious!
“Sisters don’t shake hooves! Sisters gotta hug!” I quickly hugged my sister, a chorus of “aww”s filling the room, accompanied by the gagging sounds of a baby dragon.
“Oh there’s so much to do!” Pinkie said suddenly “I gotta write Maud and tell her about you! She’ll be so excited! I betcha she’ll drop everything to come visit! Oh! And we gotta throw you a birthday party! And a welcome to Ponyville party! Oh and I gotta throw myself a Yay-I-gotta-new-sister party! And I gotta write mom anddad and tell them an- Ohohohoh! We gotta figure out what we’re gonna call ya! We can’t have “The new pony who we haven’t figured out what to name yet” On the invitations!”
“This is certainly going to be a surprise for your parents, darling” Said the white unicorn next to Applejack “ I mean what are a they supposed to think when they find out their daughter had a ch-” Applejack suddenly nudged her side, the unicorn winced. “A...chance encounter with extended family”
Something the white pony...wait I’m the white pony…something the white unicorn said caught my attention. “Hey...wait a minute!”
Pinkie was smiling openly at me, but everypony else seemed a little nervous.
“Surprise! I like that name! I wanna be a Surprise!” Everyone let out a breath, just as Pinkie sucked a huge one down in a gasp.
“Surprise? Surprise!” A devious grin passed over her face “Surprise, are you pondering what I’m pondering?”
“I believe I am Pinkie, but how are we ever gonna convince the llama to wear the lederhosen?” Pinkie giggled, patting my head
“No silly-willy! I got the perfect name for your party! We’ll combine all the parties together and we’ll call it a Surprise Party!”
“Pinkie Pie, you’re a genius!” I cried, hugging my new sister tightly around the barrel.
Twilight and Applejack glanced at once another. I could’ve swore I heard Applejack mutter “Twi...what have we just done?”