Pinkamena Diane Pie stepped back and allowed herself a moment of quiet pride. Nothing so unseemly as a smile, of course. Just the satisfaction of a job well done.
She'd had to ignore the dinner bell and stay out well past dark, but the entire south field was ready for rotation. Thousands of rocks were piled in a perfect pyramid that a good morning buck would scatter to the east. Her father would be so proud — it would save the family a whole day in the midst of a tough harvest season. It was a moment like this, he had said, that had led to his Cutie Mark.
Pinkie wondered if she was going to get a Cutie Mark out of this. The prospect caused a cold twisting in her gut that made no logical sense. A Cutie Mark was a good thing, right? It had to be. It would make her job easier and her father prouder.
She shifted her hooves uncertainly, and one hoof came down on a pebble she'd missed.
Pinkie sighed. She was hungry, tired, and sore, and didn't relish the thought of her carelessness forcing her to make another trip up the pyramid. She shoved her uneasy questions back into the dark corners of her mind, then flipped the pebble up in the air with her teeth, turned around, and carefully lined up a buck that would send it to the top of the pile. Hoof impacted stone with a solid thump, and the tiny rock sailed in an arc toward its target.
Then froze in midair.
Pinkie barely had time to blink, staring at the stone, before a wave of silence slammed into her. Well, not slammed exactly. It was like the rumble of an earthquake turned inside-out: a profound and complete lack of motion or sensation. There was a delicate whooshing noise in her ears, which she realized with a start was her veins singing in time to her heartbeat, so complete was the stillness of the world. Slowly, the stone she'd bucked began yielding to gravity's embrace, accelerating straight down before bouncing down the slope of the pyramid.
Sound gradually returned as the pebble descended — its bounces marked by the satisfying clack of granite on granite — and by the time it rolled to a stop at her hooves, the vertigo of the silence had passed. In its wake, however, remained a gnawing question: what was that?
Pinkie glanced back at her hips. Nothing. But if that hadn't been her Cutie Mark, then …
She swallowed, staring down at the pebble, then up at the top of the pyramid. All of her doubts rushed out of the shadows at once, and a deep and obvious and terrible thought gripped her: The pebble was her.
She had tried so hard to get to the top of the pile, to be just another stone indistinguishable from her pile of ancestors, but whatever had kicked her into life had been misaimed. She just wasn't cut out for this endless grey routine. She could feel it, on occasion, when she bounced in complete silence off of some chore or another; for a few days she'd regain some altitude as she worked extra hard to convince herself that she was content, but that just meant that she had further to fall before the next impact.
Pinkie stared at the pebble — the rolling stone that had left the pile entirely — as the pieces all fell into place. There was a faint tingling in her hip, bittersweet and final and with the faint scent of destiny, and she knew exactly what it was without having to look.
She swallowed, and spoke for the first time in two days: "I'm getting out of here."
For the tiniest, most fleeting moment, everypony was looking elsewhere, and so Applejack — Jacqueline Orange, she reminded herself — seized the opportunity.
She surreptitiously reached up to her throat and tugged at her collar.
Immediately, she was rewarded by a breath — a full breath — of sweet, sweet air. Too-sweet air, cluttered with perfumes and colognes that collided awkwardly with the savory scents of roasted vegetables to leave behind a miscegenated odor combining the most nauseating aspects of its parents. She almost regretted loosening her choker … but then, they were just moments from dinner, and boy howdy if she wasn't starving.
… Dear me, but she was starving.
The endless pretensions of city life were hard.
But this was it … the big payoff. Eating at the shoulders of Manehattan's elite! Her new family had coached her endlessly for this moment — worked so hard to give her a fresh start despite her rough beginnings — and … and … and they hadn't warned her about this, at all. Jacqueline stared as the silver cloche lifted from the serving tray, and the artfully plated bite-sized morsels were floated to the table in front of her. All two of them.
This was a meal? This was what she had to look forward to for the rest of her life?
Aunt Orange subtly nudged her shoulder, smiling a little too brightly. "Isn't this wonderful, Jacqueline?"
Jacqueline bit back her devastation, plastering the same perfect smile back on her muzzle, and parroted back exactly what she was supposed to say: " "
She blinked, and tried again. " ?" The room fell to perfect silence around her. Ponies began glancing around nervously; a few others opened their mouths, but similarly, no sound came out.
Her heart began to hammer behind her ears, and she had just enough time to panic over somehow breaking not just the bounds of propriety but of reality itself before the negative pressure receded from her ears and the murmurs started.
And in that moment — with the universe itself having denied her the easy lie — she knew exactly what she had to say.
Applejack grabbed her collar and yanked, buttons popping free and the catch bending away as the miserable torture device came undone. "I'm awful sorry, Aunt Orange," she said quietly but firmly. "I ain't never been more miserable in my life. I wanna go home."
It was quiet. Too quiet. So quiet that the soft sussurus of circulating blood, the uncertain flutter of Spike's young heart, echoed louder than the noises from outside his shell.
His world had always been dark, warm, and silent, but never this silent — nor this cool, nor this bright. Everything was wrong, and the terror of that sent an ice through his veins that far outstripped the increasing chill of the shell at the edge of his touch. He uncurled, stretching short, chubby limbs to the shell's edge, seeing their silhouettes obscure the dull orange glow of the sphere that defined the outer edges of his world.
He thumped one palm on the shell. More accurately, he struck a palm to it, with a perfect lack of reaction, thump or otherwise — not the slightest sound to accompany the motion. That had never happened before. He drew back his arm and hit it harder. Nothing. Spike braced himself against one side of the shell, coiled his hinds, and then shot them out against the smooth surface —
— which split with a crack, his claws shooting through into the vast void of the Outside.
Spike jerked his legs back in, and the motion overbalanced him, the world suddenly upending itself and lurching around. He slammed onto his back, then faceplanted onto the cracked side of the shell, claws scrabbling for purchase. He braced himself and kicked out again, and the shell hinged open, disgorging him into a small depression in a pile of shiny round things that felt immediately comfortable. Spike dug his claws in to the pile, clinging ferociously as gravity reasserted itself in a single direction.
"¿ʇɐɥʇ sɐʍ ʇɐɥʍ?" a voice said. It was smooth, high-pitched, and while its noises meant nothing to him, they sounded gentle and inviting.
"¿ǝsıou ƃuıʞɔɐɹɔ ǝɥʇ ɹo 'ǝɔuǝןıs ǝɥʇ?" a different voice replied. It was deeper, gruffer, much more like the deep rumblings that had lulled him to sleep on many a warm, cozy night in his shell.
"ǝsıou ǝɥʇ ʇnoqɐ pǝuɹǝɔuoɔ ǝɹoɯ ǝןʇʇıן ɐ ɯ,ı," the high and fluid voice said.
A fierce point of light shone into his eyes, blinding and disorienting him. Then a more diffuse light wrapped itself around his entire body, and gravity went all floaty again. The pile of small discs receded, and as the spots cleared from his vision, he found himself hovering face to face with two gangly-limbed quadrupeds with curious flat surfaces where their claws should have been. Most of their bodies were armored in a layer of gleaming scales, like his, but the scales had a curious lack of scent. Their broad, brightly-colored muzzles were fuzzy, ringed by equally brightly-colored manes, and they stared at him with wide eyes.
"ɐıʇsǝןǝɔ ʇǝǝʍs," the deep-voiced one breathed.
"¿ƃƃǝ uɐ ƃuısıɐɹ sɐʍ ǝɥs ¿ƃƃǝ uɐ?"
"ǝpɐɔǝp ɐ ɹoɟ sn ƃuıʍoןןoɟ ǝq ןן,ʇı noʎ uo sʇuıɹdɯı ƃuıɥʇ ʇɐɥʇ ɟı ˙ʞɔınb 'ʞɔɐq ʇı ʇnd."
Spike sank back toward the pile of discs and the glow around his body receded. He chirped and crawled back toward the fuzzy fake-scale things, reaching the nearby one and clinging to the meaty tree trunk of its leg. Nothing in the world outside the shell made any sense, but he liked the funny glow the fuzzies had made around him, and the way the smaller one pulled back its teeth at him, and the soothing cadence of their speech.
A hoof tousled his crest. "¿pɐq os ǝq ʇɐɥʇ pןnoʍ?"
Spike rubbed his muzzle against the leg and clung a little tighter, a quiet rumble building in his throat. If these amazing feelings were what life was like outside of the shell, he didn't want to let go … ever.
Rarity had long since given up fighting. She was now miles from civilization, her rear bruised and her body filthy, leaving a trail in the dust behind her like a surgeon's scalpel slicing across the southern wastelands. The sun had set half an hour ago. And yet the cheerful glow of destiny kept its iron grip on her horn, dragging her out to stars knew where.
She did have to admit, she thought, that there was something stirring about this. Her surreal detour was wrecking her project to improve the school play's costumes, yes, but maybe that was the point; she'd been driving herself crazy about it all day and long into the night, and didn't every filly secretly dream of being swept up out of their mundane lives and mundane worries into some grand and magical adventure? Maybe she was being dragged, like Batmare following the Bat-signal, to a pony in need of assistance only she could provide! Maybe her horn had attuned itself to the relic of a long-lost ancient civilization deep inside a trap-filled buried temple! Maybe it was pulling like one pole of a magnet toward the other, and she'd meet the colt who was destined to one day be her true love! Or maybe …
The glow around her horn faded. She slid to a stop. She blinked. She blinked again. She stared at the enormous silhouette crowding out the sky.
"A rock?" she said out loud. "That's my destiny?!"
And the universe met her with a perfect, inarguable, ineffable silence.
Rarity stared some more.
"Heh," she said.
A wave of helpless laughter bubbled up from her throat, followed by another, and soon the convulsions seized her side. She sank to the ground, tears streaming down her face, hoof pounding the dusty earth, body wracked by the mirth which was the only possible response to the insanity of it all.
Sunset Shimmer stared through tear-blurred eyes at the tall, regal mare who, until five minutes ago, had been the closest thing to a mother she'd ever had.
"You used me," she hissed.
Celestia delicately tilted her head. "That's not true," she said, tone measured and infinitely gentle. "Why would you think that? What's wrong, my faithful student?"
"Liar!" Sunset shouted, lunging at Celestia's immovable form and backing away, like a wave crashing against a cliff. "When were you planning on telling me about your sister trapped in exile? How long were you going to shape me into your perfect little hero just so you could send me to free her for you?"
Celestia's composure shattered.
"Sunset," she said, fear for the first time shading into her expression. "It's not like that —"
"It's exactly like that!" The room was starting to blur as tears overtopped the dam of her eyes. "Thirty foals in the orphanage and you picked the one with 'the highest magical potential'! You don't think I never saw the letter?"
Celestia swallowed and tried again. "I picked —"
"You're just like all the others! You pretend to care because I'm useful —"
"Sunset, stop. Please."
But she couldn't let herself. Not now — not if she didn't want to collapse into a quivering ball at Celestia's betrayal. "We were supposed to be family," Sunset growled, lower jaw trembling. "I thought you understood, because you were alone, just like me. So I learned everything I could for you. I wanted to be perfect for you. I wanted to be enough for you."
Celestia lifted a hoof, her eyes locked in Sunset's gaze. "If you'll just —"
"Well, you know what?" Sunset screamed, preparing to whirl and flee. "I don't "
She blinked and worked her jaw. Celestia's mouth moved, lips silently forming her name.
Sunset squared her shoulders and tried again: " "
Then her ears popped, and the rushing air of her sharp breaths punctured the silence, and the distant noises of the courtyard started filtering in again through the tower window.
Sunset broke the stare. "… What was that?" she said, deeply shaken, muzzle swiveling toward the darkness outside.
There was a rustle of wings and a rush of air. The world lurched. Sunset squeaked as hooves clamped around her barrel and a broad, white neck curled fiercely around hers.
"Sunset," Celestia whispered, and Sunset realized with a start that the neck underneath Celestia's cheeks was wet. "I lost Luna once, through my own arrogance and carelessness. Please … I beg you. Don't let me lose you too."
Sunset's resolve crumpled.
Moments later, two lost and lonely ponies were sobbing in each other's embrace, under the thin light of a waning moon.
"Quieter."
Fluttershy opened her mouth, and a hush blanketed the field. The songs of nearby birds faltered. Spike adjusted his coach's cap, put a whistle to his mouth, and blew. A sad little pfft came out.
"Quieter!" he said.
Fluttershy scrunched up her face, inhaled, and opened her mouth again. The birdsong vanished entirely. Spike blew his whistle again, and no sound came out even though his cheeks puffed out comically. He nodded, reached into his waist-pouch, and pulled out a pin. When he dropped it, it hit the ground with a tink.
As Fluttershy's mouth closed, the sounds of nature faded back in. Spike frowned. "QUIETER!"
Fluttershy reared back, drawing in an exaggerated breath, then squeezed her eyes shut and stomped back to all fours, mouth wide open as if screaming. Birdsong vanished, as did the rustle of leaves and grasses in the gentle breeze. Spike dropped the pin in perfect silence.
He was halfway through an approving nod when the noise of a barking dog carried in on the wind from Sweet Apple Acres, in the far distance. Both of them winced. Fluttershy's ears flattened.
"Not quiet enough?" she said.
"I'm concerned," Spike said, his claws ticking on the wood as he paced across the floor of the library. "I know how important the World Championships of Sssh are to her. I'm doing everything I can to help her train. But she's spent weeks working on The Voice, and she's still nowhere close to a Sonic Unboom."
The ponies seated around the big central table nodded. "Perhaps we should throw her a party," Rarity suggested. "Take her mind off of the stress. Less un-boom and more fun-boom."
"That's assumin' you can take her mind off her practice," Applejack said. "She's got an old junior title from when she was a filly, an' this is the first year she can compete as an adult. She hasn't talked about anything else for weeks."
"She hasn't talked about anything for weeks," Rarity said. "She's been even quieter than Pinkie Pie."
"You see how bad it is, then."
Sunset Shimmer frowned, levitating a book over from the reference shelf. "Not that I don't trust our friend, but can she even do an Unboom? I mean, everypony thought it was legendary before she created one as a filly, and nopony's been able to figure out how to reproduce it since."
"I believe in her," Spike said firmly, then scuffed his feet against the floor. "I just have no idea how she's going to pull it off."
A throat cleared from the far side of the table. "We should go," Pinkie said in a monotone, and all heads turned to the flat-maned earth pony's intent stare. "Cheer her on."
Scootaloo's head popped into the room from the kitchen doorway. "Yes!"
Sunset rolled her eyes. "You know, squirt, if you'd just bring everypony's water in, you could sit down and talk with us instead of eavesdropping."
"Sorry, sis." Scootaloo gave her a sheepish grin and ducked back into the kitchen.
Applejack slowly nodded. "Maybe we oughta. Let 'er know that her friends are behind her."
"There's one problem with that," Sunset said. "It's in Cloudsdale, and Fluttershy's the only one of us who can fly."
"Cloudwalking spell," Pinkie said.
"Well, I can cloudwalk already!" Scootaloo said as she trotted in, balancing six glasses of water on her wings. "And I wouldn't miss watching Fluttershy compete for the world." She got a far-away look in her eyes as she hoofed the drinks out to the friends around the table. "Sooooo cool," she whispered.
"Well, uh, I don't see why we all couldn't," Sunset said, and then one eyebrow slowly arched. "… Wait a minute, Pinkie. Aren't you scared of heights?"
Pinkie's flat expression didn't change. "Deathly."
"Fluttershy!" Scootaloo called, galloping across the clouds and tackling her leg in a hug.
Fluttershy froze, slowly blinked, and turned around, her muscles untensing as she looked down at the filly. "Scootaloo! Oh my goodness, you almost scared me. What are you doing here?"
"We're all here to root for you so you win the World Championship of Sssh!"
Fluttershy tensed up again. "All of you?"
"That's right! I cast a cloud-walking spell," Sunset said as she walked toward the pair. Applejack trailed behind, glancing around the cloud city with wide eyes. Rarity pronked after her, followed by Spike, who was straining to drag the statue-like form of Pinkie Pie across the clouds.
"Oh," Fluttershy said, deflating a little. Then she straightened up and gave the others a smile. "Thank you. I'm glad you're here. I'm sure it will turn out okay."
"Of course it will!" Scootaloo said before raising an eyebrow. "Why wouldn't it?"
Fluttershy glanced down. "All the best competitors get into 'the zone' long before they walk into the arena. I wasn't prepared to have everypony around, and it's kind of throwing off my preparations. A little." She walked into the center of the others, putting a hoof on Sunset's shoulder. "But it's a big deal that all my friends came here for me. Knowing that you're all here will help me try extra hard."
The others crowded around her — and Pinkie's frozen form — in a big group hug. "Great!" Spike said, then more hesitantly: "Are you going to be able to get prepared with us here?"
"It's alright," Fluttershy said. "There's plenty of time before the competition. It's not until tomorrow."
A tiny wheezy noise came out of Pinkie Pie's mouth, her jaw almost perceptibly moving. "…?!"
Rarity gasped. "Ooh! Great idea, Pinkie! Let's go tour the weather factory!"
"And those are where they make the snowflakes," Scootaloo said, bouncing around the weather factory and buzzing her wings excitedly, "and in that room are the color rivers for the rainbows!"
Sunset smiled and ruffled her mane with a hoof. "I'm impressed, squirt. You've really done your reading."
"Well, we do live in a library." Scootaloo nuzzled Sunset's shoulder. "I'm so glad you adopted me, sis."
Spike staggered in, grunting with exertion, his stubby arms wrapped around Pinkie Pie. He set her down, paused, and wiped sweat off his forehead. "Are we there yet?"
Applejack glanced around the room, then sighed, and called out at the top of her voice: "Rarity, stop eating liquid rainbow."
"But it's sooooo spicy!" a muffled voice called back from the other room.
Sunset facehoofed. "C'mon, girls. Let's stop her before Equestria has to deal with a rainbow shortage." She, Spike, and Applejack dashed into the other room.
Scootaloo started trotting after them, but paused and turned back to Fluttershy. "Uh … so, what you said outside …"
Fluttershy squeaked, started, then settled back down. "Oh. Uh. Uhhm … no, really, it'll be alright." She gave Scootaloo a weak smile.
Scootaloo saluted. "Well, you can count on me. If getting you in the zone is going to help you win, I'll make you the zoniest pony in the world!"
"…," Pinkie Pie not-quite-said.
"Yeah! And that!"
"Uhm," Fluttershy mumbled. "About that …"
"Well," a brash voice cut in from behind her, "if it isn't our old friend Flutter-loser."
Fluttershy squeaked, going rigid in surprise. Scootaloo glanced past her. Three weather factory workers — burly pegasi in white coats with sports-related Cutie Marks — had walked up in a circle around her with menacing grins.
"That's right, Hoops," the second one said. "Doesn't she remember her old Flight School chums? Such fun times we had."
"Yeah, Loops," the first one shot back, grin widening. "Like all those swirlies in the gymnasium toilets."
"Well, now we're back," the third one sang, leaning in for emphasis, "Butter-shy."
The other two stallions fell briefly silent.
"What the hay, Goalpost," Hoops said. "That doesn't even make any sense."
"… You know? Butter? Because she's fat?"
The three of them glanced at Fluttershy's trim, model-like figure.
"Okay," Goalpost muttered, "maybe not, but mares are supposed to be really sensitive about their weight."
Scootaloo took the opportunity of their argument to march forward, going nose to nose with Goalpost. "Well, you know what, she's not!" she shouted. "You three are just old, sad bullies, and Fluttershy's the most awesome pegasus I've ever met, and she's not afraid of you!"
Goalpost blinked. "Wait … she's not?"
Fluttershy hung her head and sighed. "No. I mean, you startled me for a bit, but I got over you guys a long time ago. I'm sorry."
"Yeah!" Scootaloo added. "Now scram!"
Hoops stared for a moment, then took his hard-hat off and flung it down into the clouds underhoof. "Well. If that don't beat all."
Loops sighed. "Sorry we couldn't help."
"It's alright," Fluttershy said heavily. "You tried your best."
Confusion flitted across Scootaloo's face. "Wait," she said. "What?"
"We're big Sssh fans," Goalpost said. "When we heard Fluttershy was going to try for a Sonic Unboom this year, we thought, well, maybe since we helped with the first one …"
"The best Sssh competitors are completely paralyzed by fear," Loops explained. "They get so still they barely even breathe. Like her." He pointed at Pinkie Pie.
"Oooh," Hoops breathed. "She's good." The three of them abruptly turned away from Fluttershy, circling Pinkie's frozen form and staring admiringly.
Scootaloo winced, ears flattening, and backed away toward Fluttershy. "Uhh. Well, I guess I screwed that one up," she murmured.
Fluttershy lowered her head, circling a wing around Scootaloo. "It's not your fault," she whispered back. "I'm just not as scared as I need to be. I've been trying to frighten myself into competitive shape for weeks, but after defeating school bullies and evil dark goddesses and dragons, I'm not the same filly I used to be when I won my title." She sighed. "And look at Pinkie Pie! Everypony can see how perfect her fear is, and I can't even lock up when my old worst tormentors show up in front of my face. I'm doomed."
Scootaloo's muzzle scrunched up, then her face brightened. "Don't worry, I've got a plan," she whispered, then strode over to Pinkie Pie.
Sunset trotted back in, a rainbow-faced Rarity floating in her hornglow, then halted at the sight. "What's going on?"
"Oh, nothing," Scootaloo said smugly, putting an elbow on Pinkie's shoulder and leaning casually against the larger mare. "Nothing … except that Pinkie here's going to be the next World Champion of Sssh."
"What?!" Fluttershy and Sunset chorused.
Scootaloo gave Fluttershy a smirk. "You said it yourself. Look at how perfect her form is. She's totally unbeatable." She nodded to the burly pegasi. "C'mon, guys, let's go get her entered."
"Wha … bu …" Sunset spluttered as the cheering stallions dragged Pinkie Pie away. She stared at the open door for several seconds after they'd left, muzzle hanging open, then glanced over at Fluttershy. "Are you alright? You don't look so good."
Fluttershy was sitting in petrified silence, her coat two shades paler than usual.
"Extra doomed," Rarity said, "with doom sprinkles on top."
The Cloudiseum was packed with cheering, whooping crowds as the Sssh contestants awkwardly shuffled across the catwalk to the cloud island in the center of the arena. Sunset frowned as she watched them enter. "Explain to me again how having Pinkie Pie in the competition helps Fluttershy?" she asked.
"It's simple," Scootaloo said. "Fluttershy conquered the fears that helped her win the first title, so she needed something new to be scared about. I had Pinkie Pie enter to get her scared of losing."
"Okay," Spike said, "that makes no sense."
"What do you mean?"
"She was already worried about her own inability to claim the title, which means she already considered herself inferior to the competition. And yet she wasn't scared. Competing against a friend wouldn't change that."
Sunset tapped a hoof to her chin. "No, I think I get it. Squirt's got a good theory — that while her fear of personal inadequacy might exist in some abstract sense, it wouldn't become a motivating factor until there was something to crystallize and personify it."
Scootaloo beamed. "Yeah! See?"
Applejack leaned in toward the arena, squinting. "If it's such a good theory, then where's Fluttershy?"
They all silently counted the figures on the island. Thirteen.
"For that matter," Sunset said, "where's Pinkie Pie?"
"Uh," Scootaloo said, smile wavering, "lemme go check. They're probably just getting ready."
"You're WHAT?!" Scootaloo said, slack-jawed. The outburst echoed around the quiet backstage area before being swallowed by the crowd noise filtering in from the arena outside.
"Not entering," Fluttershy said calmly. She leaned back in the cloud couch and sipped on a juice box. "Pinkie Pie deserves that much."
"…," Pinkie almost-said from her position near the catwalk into the arena, too quietly for either of them to hear over the crowd noise.
Scootaloo danced in place, wings flared out, fixing Fluttershy with an intense stare. "But you're the most awesome pony ever! I only got Pinkie Pie to enter to get you scared about the competition!"
Fluttershy nodded sadly, returning Scootaloo's gaze. "I appreciate that … and it almost worked. Except that when I got here, I realized that I was equally scared of beating her, because she came all this way to support me."
"…!" Pinkie almost-said, her form quivering as though in a mild breeze.
"Right now she's conquering much bigger fears than I am, and it would be so rude of me to cost her her chance at getting a medal for that."
"… …!" Pinkie's face darkened, and her body rocked back and forth. "…, … … …!"
"But what about you?" Scootaloo asked. "You've put in a lot of work. Don't you deserve good things too?"
"I've already won this once," Fluttershy said softly. "It's more fair to step out of the way and give her a chance."
"…!!" Pinkie almost-shouted, her frozen body rocking urgently until a particularly energetic swing sent her teetering at a severe angle. For a frozen moment, she hung suspended, eyes widening — and then her body toppled over the edge of the clouds, breaking her paralysis. She plummeted out of sight, legs flailing, with a yelp that was also swallowed by the roars of the crowds.
Scootaloo frowned. "Now that just seems selfish. How do you think she'd feel if she won just because you refused to compete? You're basically telling her that you could have beat her, but you held back out of pity. You'd be cheapening her victory."
Fluttershy froze. "I … uh … oh, dear. I didn't think of it that way." She swallowed and turned toward the empty clouds by the catwalk. "I'm sorry, Pinkie Pie. I … um."
Both pegasi froze.
Scootaloo's head swiveled toward the arena, eyes widening.
Fluttershy glanced around. "Where did she go?"
As terrified as Pinkie had been of heights, to actually be falling was strangely liberating.
Everything was so abstract, so distant. There weren't any edges, no sharp contrasts between the cloud underhoof and the yawning chasm behind. There was just her, the rapidly receding Cloudiseum above her, a vague sense of weightlessness, and the tableau of the land underneath — so far away that it seemed more like a watercolor painting than the world she'd spent her whole life on. If it hadn't been for the roar of the rushing wind — and the creeping sense of doom as her perspective on Equestria subtly shifted — she might even have enjoyed it.
The distant crowd noise at the arena shifted in tone, and she twisted her body around to glance back upward. Scootaloo was plummeting toward her, screaming for all she was worth. Her tiny, useless wings were tucked in against her body, tears streaming from her eyes as gravity accelerated her aerodynamic form downward like a bullet. Far above them — very far above, too far to make any difference — three of the Wonderbolts had leapt from their seats by the royal box and were also diving toward the pair.
Pinkie glanced over her shoulder. Individual buildings and trees were beginning to resolve themselves as the ground rushed into nearby focus. The hills and valleys were close enough that she was starting to distinguish the topography by the differing rates at which the ground approached. Even the broad, flat field underneath her was starting to look more like a field of waving grass stalks than an abstract green smudge.
She looked back up at Scootaloo's plummeting form. The filly was getting closer to her … but even if she caught up, what could they do? There was no way she had the wingpower to reverse her descent, much less while carrying a full-grown mare. This was it, then. Another few seconds, and they'd be back in Equestria's embrace.
Pinkie turned her back to the ground, not wanting to watch it approach, and then blinked. Something about Scootaloo looked off, and it took her a moment to realize what. The filly's colors were distorted. The purple of her mane was blurring to blue around the edges, and the orange of her coat was refracting into red and yellow. The tears streaming from her eyes were starting to shade into green —
And then a colorless wave exploded from the stadium above them, the blastwave consuming a wider and wider arc of the sky and leaving behind a frozen simulacra of the scene. An electric sensation rippled up her spine. Scootaloo's eyes shot wide open as she halted in midair, the rainbow distortion vanishing as if it had never been, and a split second later, the wind rushing around Pinkie came to an instantaneous halt as well.
The world was silent.
She glanced over her shoulder. A leg-length away, the green fields of Equestria were frozen like a three-dimensional photograph. She reached out toward the grass. It brushed softly against her outstretched hoof, the stalks gently yielding to her touch.
Scootaloo was shouting something — she could see the filly's mouth move, her lips curled into a wild grin — but the only thing Pinkie could hear was the rushing of blood in her ears.
Gravity slowly embraced her as the silence faded back into the chirrup of insects and the rustle of grass in a gentle summer breeze. Pinkie landed with a mildly annoying thump, flattening stalks as she bounced from a body-length drop. A few moments later, Scootaloo landed next to her, tiny wings buzzing crazily to control her slow descent.
Far above them, the crowd's murmuring erupted into a thunderous roar.
Fluttershy won the Sssh championship, of course. After saving two lives with a near-mythical use of applied silence, there was never any doubt.
After Princess Celestia herself awarded Fluttershy the title, all eight of them gathered on the ground.
"So, Sunset Shimmer," Celestia said, "did you learn anything about friendship from this experience?"
Sunset smiled, looking up into her mentor's eyes. "I did," she said, "but I think my friends learned even more."
Pinkie nodded, curling her neck to Fluttershy's. "Sorry," she said.
Fluttershy returned the hug. "Oh, no. It's me who should be sorry. If I hadn't been so selfish, you wouldn't have gotten upset enough to fall off the cloud."
Scootaloo glanced around, then sighed quietly and poked at Sunset's leg. "Uh, sis?"
"What is it, squirt?"
"Actually … it's my fault." Scootaloo hung her head. "I got so excited about helping Fluttershy win that I acted without thinking about what would actually help her. When you're trying to be there for your friends, you can't have your head stuck in the clouds."
Sunset hugged the filly. "That's a great friendship lesson, Scootaloo. Thank you."
Pinkie cleared her throat. "Almost right."
Sunset glanced over at her. "Oh?"
"We learned how important it is to keep your hooves on the ground."
Laughter tumbled out from seven throats, and the wind carried it out across the meadow.
"Do you ever stop and wonder," Spike said, lowering his Power Ponies comic for a moment, "if there's other worlds out there like ours?"
Scootaloo glanced up from Three-Tribe Spells: A Theoretical Treatise on Channeling Cutie Mark Magic and back at the dragon sprawled out alongside her on the park bench. "Uhn?"
"Like. You know." One of Spike's claws lifted from the comic book and made a vague gesture in the air. "Parallel universes."
She rolled her eyes and flipped a page with one wing. "Like, in one version of reality we're all really the Power Ponies? That sort of thing?"
"Sort of," Spike said. "More like, what if they were us?"
"What's the difference?"
"Well, the Power Ponies are fiction. But we're not, and we go out and have adventures and save the world." Spike sat up straight. "Here's the thing. It seems so strange the way everything worked out for us, doesn't it? Sunset moving to Ponyville the very same day that all of us teamed up to fight off the Chocolate Moose. The way that we taught her the lessons she needed to learn to unlock the Elements and save Princess Luna. How would that have changed if any of us had been different? Like, what if you were Loyalty, like Zapp being a pegasus, and I was just the sidekick, like Humdrum being a dragon?"
Scootaloo shook her head without looking up from her reading. "Don't be silly. I didn't even have my Cutie Mark when we came into town." She pointed a wingtip to the star on her flank. "Dragons get their powers much faster than ponies. You were old enough to help, and I wasn't. Hay, I don't even know if I'm old enough to help now. I mean, my entire Mark is about chasing things beyond my reach."
Spike looked away. "Maybe not you you, then. The point is, doesn't it feel weird that I'm one of the Elements of Harmony?"
Scootaloo stopped, then closed her book, turning around to give the dragon a hug. "Oh, Spike. Don't you ever doubt yourself. Every day, just by living in pony society, you're being loyal to your friends. How could a pony beat that?"
Spike sighed, but put one arm around her shoulders. "I appreciate you saying that. It's just … I'm so different from the others. Doesn't it ever feel to you like this wasn't the way it was supposed to work out? Like …" He laughed self-consciously. "Like our universe is wrong somehow."
"Nonsense," Scootaloo said firmly. "Your difference is a source of strength, remember? Remember when Applejack needed to get rid of her old barn, and you set it on fire for her? How would a pegasus have been able to handle that? Or what about the time when Zecora came into town, and everypony was scared of her, and you marched right out because you already knew that what someone looks like doesn't determine who they are? That doesn't sound 'wrong' to me. That sounds like you stopped us from being 'wrong.'"
"Heh, yeah," Spike said. "I guess you're right."
"Of course I'm right. What about when the six of you defeated Discord? The others wouldn't have had a chance without you, because you had no Cutie Mark for him to corrupt, and were able to get the others back to normal. Face it, Spike, if the Elements of Harmony weren't exactly who they were meant to be, Equestria would be a smoking ruin right now."
Spike glanced down, letting a bashful smile creep back onto his muzzle, then turned to face Scootaloo a little more squarely, hugging her with both arms. "Thanks, Scootaloo. I think I needed to hear that."
"Any time, Spike." She returned the hug fiercely, then froze and glanced around. "Oh, heck! Speaking of the time —"
Spike's eyes widened, and he jumped up off the bench, glancing around the Canterlot streets. "The wedding! We've gotta get to the castle!"
Easy laughter came from behind them as Sunset trotted up. "Calm down, you two. Everything's under control."
"But we're helping Princess Celestia herself out!" Spike said, fiddling with his claws. "If everything's not perfect —"
Sunset curled her neck to Spike's, then sat down. "It'll be fine — we're basically there as backup for the entire Royal Guard. They don't even need us until the ceremony starts. Honestly, I think Celestia just asked us to be there as an excuse to let us meet Cadance in person."
Scootaloo gasped, eyes lighting up. "You met her? What's she like?"
"A little rude, actually," Sunset said, then shrugged. "But she's got a lot on her mind. I'm sure it's just stress."
