Choice
Pinkie Pie hadn’t thought much about her life on the farm before having seen the rainboom. She hadn’t thought about how it might affect her, how her family and their intrinsic values, their genes, the things she’d been given down to the littlest in her DNA could shape her life. She understood who she was: the partying pink pony that knew how to make everypony smile. But it was slowly becoming the realization that there was much more to her than that.
Pinkie awoke in her fluffy comforter, and immediately felt the rush of an emptying fog enter her head, and sleepiness overtook all of her double-quick.
It’s going to be one of those days. Alright, Pinkie thought, quite melancholy to be honest in all her inward tone, I’ll just have to put in extra effort. That’s fine. It’s fine.
The pink pony uprighted herself abruptly with intention to begin getting ready for the day, but felt her legs harden, her body refuse, shut down.
Oh, come on, she thought desperately, not now. I need to get up. Lots of things to do today.
She attempted to jerk herself forward once more but inevitably resulted in an equal and opposite reaction, thrust against her fluffy pillow with a heavy, cushiony umph.
Pinkie had discovered that finding things that made her feel cosy really helped her moods and bad days, like these, though at the moment having such an amassing cushion of a bed wasn’t helping her at all.
Finally she resigned to laying there for several moments, mustering up the strength to actually get up, and found that it was causing her heart to beat quicker, her cheeks to feel nearly numb, the fog to thicken.
Great. Her anxiety.
Really, Pinkie, she thought in terrible frustration, really. Get up. Come on. That’s all you have to do. Come on… go… no, don’t lay - go. Now. Now. Now....
Eventually she thought to count down from five, and slowly she thought each number until she got to one, and … didn’t move.
“Pinkie Pie!”
A boisterous, cheery call rang from downstairs, belonging to Mrs. Cake. Pinkie nearly jumped, and found her heart going miles a minute. Soon she calmed and responded,
“Heee-eeere~!”
In her normal, sing-songy, happy voice.
“Oh, Pinkie, dear, please come down; we’ve got a busy day!”
Motivation, thought Pinkie, there. Now you have motivation. Just…
She finished her thought by rather sluggishly turning in her bed, before inching off along the side in the strangest way possible, then found herself lying on the floor.
You--
“Pinkie Pie!”
Mrs. Cake shouted again, cutting off Pinkie’s imminent self-deprecation, and reluctantly Pinkie hauled herself to her hooves and hobbled out of her room, stopping at the top of the staircase.
Then she put on her mask; the vibrant, pinker-than-possible, smiley-from-ear-to-ear one that she wore every day, that helped other ponies get through their bad days, that buried her inner turmoil ever further, ever deeper, into a hill that (against Pinkie’s knowledge) was in reality an active volcano.
Pinkie trotted, skipped, slid down the stairs - all at once - as was her custom, and bounced right up to Mrs. Cake with a kick and a flick of her tail.
“Whatcha need for me t’day, Mrs. Cake?” Pinkie asked, forcing her expression to appear bright, sugary, and eager.
“Oh, we got a lot of orders, don’t-ya-know,” Mrs. Cake responded, carrying on towards the service desk and placing a hoof on the register, “Looks like we’re gonna have a handful!”
Mrs. Cake’s voice rose to a cartoonish, gleeful giggle, and Pinkie internally winced, though she did appreciate that the mare could experience joy so easily. That in itself was a gift.
“Right on it, Cake-a-roonie,” Pinkie chirped, bouncing towards the kitchen, “just gimme the ingredients and specifics, every last thing, and it’ll be done in a jiffy!”
“You’re the best, Pinkie Pie,” Mrs. Cake laughed, grabbing a box of notes that were the sweets-preferences of everypony who had ordered, “Aren’t-ya just the slap-happiest pony I know!”
Aren’t I, Pinkie thought, before nodding vigorously to Mrs. Cake, collecting up the notes, and practically flying into the kitchen.
Now that she was alone, Pinkie near collapsed - such an act had already fatigued her.
Really? She cursed herself, it’s no big deal. You’re just doing for everypony what they deserve, and you’re exhausted? Get a hold of it.
Pinkie silently sighed and unloaded the notes, read each carefully and slowly, and began on her task. It felt like an eternity before every cake, cupcake, muffin, and the like had been finished, and finally she wrapped a bow on the very last box that encased the special order when Mrs. Cake walked in.
“Mmm, doesn’t this place smell lovely,” the mare giggled after a very ceremonious sniff, “I sure hope you don’t open a store of your own! I’d be run out of business.”
Pinkie knew it was a joke, but her fuzzy mind was causing her to feel sleepy and she could hardly process the statement; however she managed to respond just right.
“Oh, don’t be silly, Cakey-bakey. ‘Course I could never run you out of business. You’re the best cake-maker in town!”
Mrs. Cake responded with another loud chortle, then instructed Pinkie to deliver each order to the specific address.
The pink pony was already beginning the feel the crushing weight of her anxiety tugging at her cheeks, pulling on her heart, turning her hooves to stone, but she knew she had to get the tasks done. It would make ponies happy. It would make them smile.
Pinkie loaded a cart with each of the deliveries-to-be-made, and bounded off on her way, though she found that she couldn’t meet everypony in the eye, broadly smile to each passerby, have a quick but fulfilling conversation with anypony who seemed like they needed talking to.
In fact, she could barely keep her gaze in front of herself; she kept feeling the need to look at the ground, then wanting to stop walking, then pushing harder, and all the while feeling more and more worn with each step.
Guilt pulled at her chest. She was supposed to be there for the inhabitants of Ponyville, but instead she was only focusing on herself.
She suddenly dreaded the moment she’d have to knock on the door and present each delivery. Pinkie knew what everypony would expect from her, and she knew that it was becoming harder and harder to satisfy those expectations.
She recalled the time that she went full-on Pinkamena over a special Yakyakistan instrument. She’d been trying to find things that could make her happy, that could fill her up while she was feeling empty; any little thing to bring her a little ounce of satisfaction. She’d pass from thing to thing, each of them rather small and silly, like her cosy bed or a fluffy stuffed animal. Yet when she discovered the instrument, she’d found a sort of release through playing it, through the desire to become good at it. It was her happy place… but then her friends revealed to her how she wouldn’t be able to play the instrument well. How all that time and effort in trying to make herself happy through this one little thing… ultimately wouldn’t be fulfilling.
It was crushing, this revelation. It made her feel like she’d never find something to make her happy, that she’d never get over her moments of depression and her secret struggle, and that she would never be good enough. So she let herself fall.
Though things turned out okay in the end, with the Yaks - in a sort of ridiculous stroke of luck - loving her music which she admitted was terrible, she was determined not to fall again. Her friends had been desperate to help her, and she’d been hurting them through her ever-greying sense of happiness and inability to carry on the name of her very element. She had to be strong this time, even though things were getting worse and worse.
So she sucked in a breath and put on a more determined, yet still quite tired face, and went on walking, though saw that she had already arrived at her first delivery, apparently having spent most of her trip lost in thought.
She knocked on the door and put on her mask, smiled, said hello, asked how things were, turned the conversation on a random tangent that would be sure to make the pony’s day, then she left. Pinkie repeated the process at each and every house, each and every delivery; and it was as though the paint on her metaphorical mask were becoming smudged, just a little.
The deliveries were done, all that work accomplished. And it was only 9 am.
Pinkie returned to Sugercube Corner, relaying her feats to Mrs. Cake, all the while recieving much praise, before being released from work with anything and everything left to do at her hooftips.
All she wanted to do was curl up in her bed and disappear.
Yet, despite having this new “free” time, she’d of course filled up her schedule, being Pinkie Pie and all. A full day of outings with friends. Fun.
She’d once thought of ‘fun’ as a part of her identity, and would’ve done anything to achieve it; it was another way of filling up her emptiness. Now ‘fun’ was just a word - a code word, for ‘perpetuating misery’.
That phrase was a tad misleading; of course Pinkie Pie wanted to spend time with her friends. She’d been learning that aloneness was very bad for her, that it made her worse, and having somepony close to spend time with even often was near essential for survival (because thriving was out of the question).
However, this day had been more pointedly been a struggle for her than most. She didn’t even want to be around anyone. It didn’t feel like it would help her mood, or like her friends would want to help. She knew she couldn’t confide in this.
This was the only secret she’d ever had that hadn’t been difficult for her to keep.
She’d just have to keep on keeping on. Keeping and keeping, shoving and burying.
Burying me.
Thought Pinkie, before almost grudgingly shoving the thought away.
No, no, don’t think like that. It’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.
By the time she’d forced herself the thoughts away, it was already noon; time to visit her friends for their special day, one chock-full of activities and togetherly-time that they hadn’t been able to accomplish since the school was built.
Mentally checking over her mask, Pinkie realized the smudges just wouldn’t do. She’d have to craft a new mask - one that wasn’t just pink, but every shade of pink, from top to bottom and side to side, even plaid, and a huge, exaggerated smile on the front, with the vibrancy and readiness-for-life of the sun.
I’ll just have to ‘up’ the act. No problem. I’m good at this now. I can handle being a little more excitable than usual, and so can my friends. They could take anything I’d throw at them by this point. I’m Pinkie Pie, after all. They don’t question it.
With her mental incentive in tow, the pink pony, full-on masked and alive on the outside - yet nearly extinct on the inside - sprang off to her first destination: the park.
It only took what seemed like a couple moments for three of her friends to come in to view, obviously waiting on the others to arrive. With a loud squeeee Pinkie somersaulted across the field of grass and landed on top of each pony, knocking them to the ground.
“Heeello my bestest friends in the whole wide world!” the pink pony exclaimed, climbing off them then squeezing them into a tight group hug.
Rainbow Dash grunted against the bear-embrace with the quirky smile and muttered through gasps,
“H-hey… Pi...nkie!”
Meanwhile Twilight Sparkle attempted to shy out of the hug after a laugh that was borne in surprise, and Fluttershy was silently accepting her fate.
Pinkie eventually released them, afterwards suddenly feeling her brain droop out of process, allowing fuzz to take over. For a moment she sagged, and she attempted to upright herself, but a worn, tired sigh escaped her, and she quickly stepped back from her friends, hoping her jolting movement would have distracted them from giving attention to her momentarily failed composure.
“Well?” She said near weakly, swallowing hard, as the numbness crept up her legs, “where are the others at? I wanna start as…” she ducked her head for a second as a wave of tiredness swept over her, “...as soon as possible.”
Houston, we may have to abort the ‘mask-project’, Pinkie relayed in her head, her drugging wooziness causing her brain to resort to humor like a parachute of sorts, an attempt to catch her in her fall and help her to think relatively straight at least.
Loud and clear, over. Chhh. Loud and clear. Original landing plan is confirmed faulty, Chhh… we might have to go the silent and steady route.
Another voice in her head responded,
Chhh. Copy that. Operation ‘stop-caring’ set in stage. Captain is going to have to deal with it - we’re too tired to put on anything any longer, and we just don’t care at this point, over. Chhh.
Suddenly Pinkie realized the ridiculous dialogue occurring within her thoughts and shoved it away, along with the metaphorical mask. She couldn’t handle it right now; she just had to pretend like it wasn’t a big deal, and if her friends asked, she really didn’t feel like answering.
This was all normal. Fine. Nothing unordinary was happening. You’re not yourself, Pinkie? Oh, silly! I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.
It was at this point the pink pony returned from her ‘mental-palace’ of sorts, finding frustratingly that her friends had already answered her question and carried on with their own conversation, whilst she had simply been nodding along.
The three beside her all turned their heads, and she followed their gaze to see Applejack and Rarity trotting up to meet them, faces both apologetic and giddy.
“Oh, sorry, y’all!” Applejack huffed when they’d reached their posse, “we’d just been gettin’ done a day at the spa n’ all. Y’all know how that goes with this’un.”
The orange cowmare gestured pointedly to her stark-opposite friend, who in turn playfully stuck her nose up.
“Well, Applejack, if you dislike our outings so much, we can just stop being friends!”
She finished the comment with a wink, resulting in the two ending up in a giggle fit, while the rest of their friends followed suit.
Pinkie was simply observing by now, like a robot, fuzz and all, her gaze blank, and mimicked the laughter as if it made perfect sense that something that actually wasn’t all that funny was so interesting to all of them.
I don’t care. I don’t care. I’m not being normal? That’s okay. It’s fine. Who cares? I don’t.
Finally Twilight called them all to attention, announcing,
“Well, girls, we’re going to have a great day. Lots planned - perfectly calculated. Ohh, I’m so excited!”
Excited. Who’s excited? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’ll be fine. It’s fine. Who cares? I don’t. If I don’t seem excited, that’s okay. If they notice, so what? If I lose them as friends, it’s not the end of the world. If that’s how it has to be, I can accept that.
Pinkie blinked and found she’d daydreamed into her thoughts again, having missed what Twilight had said.
However, she didn’t care. And she wasn’t just saying that. Her head was too fuzzy, starting to become heavy, to hurt. She felt nauseous. She didn’t care because she couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t handle anything, was starting to lose touch with everything. She was shutting down.
“You know what?”
Pinkie burst into the conversation suddenly, realizing how hollow she sounded, knowing she didn’t care at this point,
“You all go on! I’m feeling a little poorly. I’ll catch up with you, I just got to, uh--”
She didn’t finish her sentence, but saw they were all staring at her, saw they all could tell she wasn’t alright.
That’s fine. I don’t care. Or I do care, now. But it hurts to care. So I won’t care. I-- oh, too much, too much, stop thinking. Stop.
She found herself awkwardly waving with a crooked, fake smile, and walking away, her friends waving back and nodding in some form of understanding, as if they were saying they got that she had to excuse herself, but they were concerned anyway.
See, they care about you. But you’re not caring about them. You care, but you’re not acting like it. You’re a bad friend. No, stop - stop thinking. I -- oh, gosh. OH, gosh.
Suddenly her heart lurched, the nauseous feeling increased, she felt everything pulsing, her limbs tingling, her face numb, her mind dead.
She’d gotten a distance away, but she had to find a quiet place. She had to hide. Nopony could see her like this - and she didn’t want to be around anypony. She didn’t want to ever again. No, she couldn’t handle it. Not anymore. No, it hurt. It was too much. It was all too much.
Pinkie found a small place in an alley that looked rather unattended, and figured she wouldn’t be bothered there. But if somepony saw her, she didn’t care.
She curled up against the wall in the farthest corner of the alley and began rocking back and forth, hyperventilating, her mind absolutely muddled, dealing with all and every thought, and no thoughts at all - each and every feeling, and no feelings at all.
Her hooves trembled, tears sprouted from her eyes; she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t do this anymore. The tears came more and she couldn’t stop them, and then she found she couldn’t move.
She was hardened, a rock, numb and limp, trembling and crying. She knew it was an anxiety attack in that moment.
The problem was not only that she was having an attack. It was that she was alone meanwhile. That’s when the depression kicked in full force.
You can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this anymore. It’s too hard and I don’t want it. I don’t like it. I’m tired of it. Too much life, too much death. I’m suffering and I can’t -- I’ve got to stop. I’ve got to… I’ve got too…
Suddenly ideas hit her mind. Foreign ones, but ones that seemed nearly like solutions, because it was the first thing she’d come up with that wasn’t an uncertain.
She didn’t know how she could help herself. She didn’t know if she could help herself. But she knew how she wouldn’t have to anymore, and she knew how to do it.
I’m not myself anymore.
I know.
If I’m not myself, it doesn’t matter if I go…
They won’t miss me. I’m not myself.
They will be fine without me.
It won’t be too bad - not afterwards.
I’ve dealt with a lot already. I can do a little more, and then it’ll be done.
Pinkie then found herself pulling back to her hooves, walking. Walking away, to an isolated place, a place where she couldn’t be found, and no one could notice something was up, and a place that would get what was to be done quickly.
She walked to a bridge overlooking a low chasm, deep in a little forest nearby the Everfree.
She watched the grass, every little blade, pass by her vision as she looked down, not animated anymore, moving like she was being controlled. She watched as the grass turned to stone when she reached the bridge. She looked at the uneven squares that the rocks had been cut into, and the concrete in between, and slowly her gaze lifted to the arm of the bridge that was meant to protect ponies from falling. Meant to.
She crossed to the middle of the bridge and put one hoof on the arm of it.
Then she realized she wasn’t alone. Every bit of fur on her neck stood on end, and she turned around to see the last person she would expect.
Discord.
He was watching her with an unreadable expression, a claw clutching his tail-end like a cane.
For a long time they looked at each other, no words being spoken, no impressions being given; it was like they both were inanimate.
Finally, Discord spoke.
“What do you think you’re doing…?”
His voice came out slowly, deep, drawled, and it sent a sharp shiver up Pinkie Pie’s spine.
However, despite the urge his tone caused in her to respond, she was too numb. Practically mute.
So she said nothing.
He let another moment of silence span between them for several moments, though it didn’t feel like time was passing. It didn’t feel like anything. Pinkie couldn’t feel anymore.
“I see,” Discord began, his gaze drifting to her hoof on the arm of the bridge, “that you look ready to climb that.”
Ever so slightly did his head turn to the side as he finished,
“...hmm?”
Pinkie didn’t respond. She closed her eyes slowly instead. She’d been prepared to keep them closed because she was so tired, but then decided against it.
“So you think that you can get away with erasing yourself from the world,” Discord hissed out suddenly, no longer beating around the bush; Pinkie jumped at how blunt he’d suddenly turned, how he’d hit the nail on the head.
Nail on the head.
Another slow blink. Her hooves inched closer to the side. She tugged at the arm of the bridge further ever... so... slightly.
“Fine,” Discord whispered, his voice borderline menacing, “if you want so bad to have your friends rid of you… I’ll show you what it’s like.”
He raised a paw, preparing two fingers to snap, when he added,
“And remember, before you think to blame me for what you’re about to see… you’re the one asking for this.”
Then his fingers pressed together and resounded throughout what seemed like the whole earth, stopping the air.
Everything began spinning.
The bridge was gone, the stone slabs, the concrete in between, the blades of grass - each and every one, and Discord.
There was just darkness now, and the spinning stopped.
Pinkie didn’t feel a thing. She only looked on. She watched the scene play out before her.
Applejack was staring, simply staring, at an apple tree in front of her, a basket beside it, seeming as if the orange mare had been preparing to kick the tree for harvest. But she didn’t move. Suddenly her stare turned hard, her face wrinkled up, and then she did kick the tree.
When the apples fell, so did most of the leaves, but Applejack wasn’t watching. She was curled up now. She was sobbing.
The scene spun again. Now it was Twilight, in the castle. She was huddled with Rarity and Rainbow Dash.
“I think I’m going to resign from the Wonderbolts,” Rainbow Dash murmured, her voice sounding like it ground against her throat, and her eyes were puffy.
“Rainbow Dash, you can’t let this take away everything in your life,” Twilight whispered, putting a hoof to the cyan mare’s shoulder, “you have to keep going.”
Rainbow looked up to meet her gaze, her expression screwed up with anger, and she spat,
“Why couldn’t we tell that to Pinkie Pie? Tell her not to give up?”
The alicorn drew back in shock, and Rainbow Dash continued,
“Face it, Twilight - an element of harmony is gone. Everything in my life HAS been taken away. How are we supposed to do anything anymore? Honestly, I don’t need to be in the Wonderbolts. I had my time. I just need to go away from Ponyville from a while. Everything…”
She choked and stared hard at the ground, then finished, “everything reminds me.”
Twilight just watched Rainbow Dash, lost for words, as if she couldn’t conjure up a response that could even convince herself. She turned her gaze to Rarity, who was splayed in a little couch, her hair unkempt and covering most of her face. Her eyes were closed and her cheeks appearing greyish, with dark bags under her eyes.
“I mean it this time.” Rarity said with almost no voice, “this is the worst possible thing....”
The image spun again, faster and faster, until it ended on the image of Fluttershy’s cottage.
No animals were around, no plants could be seen. A melancholy darkness seemed to hang in the air around the cottage.
Inside, there were sounds of a pony in pain, and the scene shifted to the inside. Fluttershy was trembling nonstop, clutching a pillow, with several nurses surrounding her, attempting to calm her down, though they’d clearly given up on this, as some nurses were carrying a gurney toward the shivering yellow mare.
Fluttershy was whimpering, and shivered worse, until it looked like something far more serious, and it was.
The nurses took to maneuvering Fluttershy on the gurney, then rushed her out the door and into the Medical Cart that was waiting outside.
The image changed one last time; it was simply ponyville now, but it didn’t look like ponyville. The ground was opened up, houses were floating upside-down, and ponies were tumbling out, but were stuck mid-air as if frozen in time. Dark red clouds surrounded the place, thorny vines were strewn across the town, and it seemed to be raining liquid coal.
In the midst of it all was a throne with a familiar silhouette upon it.
Discord.
Suddenly Pinkie Pie was snapped out of the vision, and she collapsed and did the only thing at that point she could do: she wept.
Pinkie, to her surprise, felt Discord wrap around her and stroke her mane, and he seemed to be crying himself.
They remained there like that until Pinkie couldn’t cry anymore, and finally she asked,
“What did you show me?”
“You might think,” Discord replied quietly, “that I’ve given you an impression of how things might turn out if you go through with this.”
Pinkie looked up at him, unable to guess his motive to his statement, so Discord finished,
“I haven’t given you an impression of how things might turn out. I’ve shown you how things do turn out when you go through with this.”
Pinkie Pie’s eyes went wide with a certain horror, and she found she could no longer meet his gaze.
“However,” Discord broke in, “that does not mean what I have shown you is the future. I simply bent the matrix of time… but it is not fixed.”
Tears began to spring to Pinkie’s eyes again, and she asked while ducking her head into her joined hooves,
“Why are you doing this for me?”
Discord, once stroking her mane like a father in some strange sense, answered,
“I suppose Fluttershy has rubbed off on me.”
He let a few moments pass before he broke the silence again:
“The ability to exhibit contagious joy is the greatest combatant to discord. In other words… Yes, Fluttershy is a good friend of mine… but I don’t know where I’d be if you weren’t there to keep me in check.”
Pinkie cried for a little while longer, then muttered,
“Okay, fine… so I live, then? What do I do? I can’t be there for everypony like I used to! I can’t even be that for myself!”
Discord replied,
“Even if you’re not able right now to extend to others the way you used to -- Pinkie, your very existence is enough to make everypony smile. You exist, and that’s good.”
Once again the pink pony did not respond, so Discord took this as an opportunity to go on,
“You’re going to have to get help; you’re going to need to heal… but you have friends you can lean on. Reach out to them, even if it doesn’t seem like it can help. You’ve done so much for everypony; it’s okay to let us take care of you for as long as you need it.
“It’s not going to get better right away. You’re going to fall flat on your face. You’re going to snap your fingers and mess up… but it will be okay. There is a light at the end of this. There is a redemption.”
He turned her head with a claw to meet his gaze:
“It is a wonderful life.”
He winked and added gently,
“You’re not going to get that, but there’s a lot out there who would.”
Pinkie looked up at him and, for the first time in a long time, broke into a true, real, genuine, happy, smile.
And then, she laughed.