Ant violence
Are the greatest days the days when you get to go on a picnic?
"Yes," Pinkie said, emphatically.
"What are you saying yes to?" Twilight said.
"The question that you just asked, silly."
"I didn't ask any questions." Twilight became concerned for Pinkie, and her mental stability. "Are you feeling well, Pinkie?"
"Yes, I feel great."
"The question that you speak of," Sweetie Belle said, "came from me."
"Oh, I see," Pinkie said, giggling.
"Sweet peas," Spike said.
"The greatest days are the days of a picniiic," Pinkie sang, spontaneously.
"We getting closer for every time the clock tiiicks," Sweetie went on.
"Okay," Twilight said, smiling.
"Okaaay," Pinkie sang. "Okaaay," she sang, in a low rumbly tune. "Okaaay," she sang high. "Okaaay," she sang in a low register again. "Okaaay. Okaaay." She went back and forth.
Twilight laughed.
"It's a wonderful daaay," Pinkie finished.
"Okay," Twilight said again. "We hath arrived."
So they had, on a meadow that was wide-open. It was a nice place. It was a beautiful place, thought all the ponies involved. It was a place where the grass grew greener than in other places, places that were less and more mess, lacking the grandness, thought all the ponies involved. This meadow was more and not less, no mess, but clean, lean, and the best. A mess, which is something uneven, and asymmetrical, could not be the best, thought all the ponies involved. A mess is a meadow that is full of ants, but this one, being not a mess, but the best, was not full of ants, and it was a jolly good, and pretty swell, wonderful, and great sight. So thought they all.
"Okay," Pinkie said. "We sit down somewhere around here, but I don't know where. In the middle of the meadow, over there?"
"You speak like Zecora today?" Twilight said, curious about Pinkie's outlandish, albeit characteristic behavior.
"Yes," Pinkie said. "I do, and I am."
"I am accepting that as part of today," Twilight said, accepting it, as she thought that Pinkie will be Pinkie. Colts will be colts, and Pinkie will be Pinkie, in a manner of speaking.
"Hey," Twilight said, shouting it out into the world, so that all the ponies around her would hear it.
"Hey," she said again, shouting louder.
"Hey."
Sweetie Belle smiled, and looked up at Twilight, staring at her. "Hey, you."
"Let us put out the blanket before we do the food."
"I like that idea," Pinkie said. "Too."
"Okay," Twilight said.
They laid out the blanket over the meadow, and the blanket lay there, checkered, and pretty, making the meadow even prettier, for all that was there. More fair, which is to say pretty, all of the meadow, and other things around it, did become, as the blanket lay there, and more to come. For all the grass, and a lonely tree, whose branches swiveled in the wind, made the place all the merrier, and prettier to see.
"Wow," Pinkie said.
"Why are you saying wow?" Twilight said, genuinely wondering.
"I don't know." Pinkie wasn't sure, so turned to the food. "But I do know one thing."
"What is that?" Twilight said.
"I will enjoy this." She picked up a sandwich. "Hey, Twilight," she said, grinning.
Twilight, rather than speaking, looked at her, waiting for the punchline.
"You don't suppose that you could make sandwiches for me once I make a coltfriend, because your sandwiches could win any heart, and you're better at it than I am."
"We need not make sandwiches to make coltfriends," Twilight said.
"I will make the best sandwiches, and then, I will share them, alike and alike with him," she said.
"Okay," she said, just accepting it, not really understanding what Pinkie was saying.
"Still," she said. "If you want equality, we're going to have to make an equal amount of sandwiches, so he makes two sandwiches a day, and I make two sandwiches a day, or we go back and forth, and he makes four sandwiches a day, and then, I make four sandwiches the next day."
"Whatever, Pinkie," Twilight said, being amused.
A giant oak, big and fair, stood in the wind, and flared. Its leaves blew back and forth, swiveling in the wind, the mighty wind, fair and kind, good and good, better than good, blowing, as it should, for what does the wind do other than blow? No, it always blow. The leaves blow, and everything blow, even a few objects out of the picnic basket.
"There goes dessert," Spike said, watching the chocolate muffins fly away. "Strong wind. Everybody, stay alert."
"Heheh," Pinkie laughed.
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Everyone became a rhymer today."
The wind kept blowing, and its currents kept flowing, grabbing the leaves, making them move, as leaves will do, in the wind. The tree, and its branches, can testify.
"Hm, it's still warm and cozy," Sweetie Belle said, grabbing a sandwich. "I like sandwiches."
"These have cucumber in them," Pinkie said, pointing to one that Sweetie picked up. "In my honest opinion, as a baker, and certified sandwich-maker, these are some of the best sandwiches around."
Sweetie Belle took a bite, and the sandwich tasted lovely. It tasted of butter, meeting cheese, meeting the wet sensation of cucumber in your mouth. Sweetie was in love with this sandwich, more so than she had been with other ponies, real ones.
"I love this sandwich," she said, being sure that she did, most assuredly, for the good taste of a good sandwich cannot be denied.
"I see," Pinkie said. "If you meet a guy that can make a sandwich like this, marry him on the spot."
Now, this piqued Twilight's interest. "What's on your mind today, Pinkie?"
"Isn't it obvious?" she said.
"It's not too obvious." Twilight cozied down in the blankets, feeling unsure on the one hand, and not really caring, thinking, and paying attention on the other, and she wasn't ready for what Pinkie was about to say next.
"I think I have found someone," she said.
Twilight sat up, now very interested, and happy for Pinkie. "Who?"
"Oh, I don't know if I should say."
"Okay." Twilight nodded, thinking that Pinkie would make up her mind eventually, both on love, and on what she did and did not want to tell Twilight about that. "I think this is a great day today."
"Except maybe," Spike said, "for the wind."
"Hm," Twilight said, shrugging.
It was still a hot day, a warm day, and the wind cooled. Spike didn't like that, but Twilight did. It goes to show that the same thing can be perceived in two different ways by two different ponies.
"Hey," Pinkie said. "Look who wanted to join us."
There were ants all over the ground. There hadn't been a moment ago. No one liked that. Ants? No, thank you. No ants for me, and no ants for thee, thank you very much. These ants had no place here, invading the friends' beautiful picnic, and most of all, they just didn't want their food stolen. That was the crux of it.
"Okay," Twilight said, grabbing the ants with her magic, and hovering them back over to the tree, that was no more than three meters away from where they stayed.
"I wonder," Pinkie said.
Sweetie Belle was paying attention. "What?"
"I wonder if ants get angry, sad, happy, or afraid, like us ponies do?"
"That is a weird question," Sweetie said.
"That is philosophical," Twilight said. "I didn't expect that."
"Me neither," Pinkie said, taking a tasty bite out of a sandwich. "I don't know what I'm going to say. I don't even remember what I said, to be honest with you."
"About ants having emotions like us?"
Pinkie nodded. "That's right, and if they do, and you just put them all the way over there, I wonder if they become vengeful ants. Will they strike back at us?"
Twilight laughed. "I'm not saying that might makes right, but what can they do? They're ants?"
"Oh, you never know," Pinkie said. "You never know."
"Hey," Spike said. "Who made these sandwiches?" He liked it too, and took another bite, enjoying the taste, and his was oats that had been fried. It was good.
Pinkie blushed. "Well, I don't want to make a big scene here, but you know."
Spike smiled at her, and she smiled back. The compliment felt like a warm hug. It's great to be around friends, Pinkie thought, and so thought all the others.
"I love you guys," Pinkie said.
"I love you too," Twilight said, without a moment's hesitation.
Sweetie would respond, but her mouth was too full of sandwich to enter into civilized conversation. "Murgh-hurg-gurg," she said.
"I know," Pinkie said, agreeing with whatever it was that Sweetie had said.
"I love you guys," Spike said.
It was a beautiful day.
"Oh," Pinkie said. "The ants. They came back."
"Okay," Twilight said, picking them up and moving them to the tree again. "Stuff happens."
"Including ant invasions," Pinkie said.
"Yeah."
"Hey," Sweetie said. "I thought I invited Diamond Tiara to come on this picnic, but she didn't show up. What gives?"
"No one knows," Pinkie said. "But that's more sandwiches for me." She took a very tiny nib out of a sandwich, and then another one, and then another one, and then, she swallowed the sandwich whole. "Oops."
"I suppose," Twilight said. "That someone with your energy level will have to eat a lot more than the rest of us to get through the day."
"I eat more sugar a day than you, Twilight, weigh," she said.
"That's a lot of sugar."
"You brush your teeth a lot?" Spike said.
"Oh, I hope I do," Pinkie said. "Sometimes I forget."
"You'd better," Twilight said. "That's a lot of sugar, and you don't want any fake teeth when you're thirty."
"Can't you fix teeth using magic?" Pinkie said, moving her arms in waves, as if performing a spell.
Twilight looked up and down, thinking, not making eye-contact. Then she said, "You don't want to take the risk though. I'm not sure I can fix it."
"Oh." Pinkie's smile faded. "I always figured you could."
"The ants came back," Twilight said.
"Okay," Pinkie said, standing up. "Do the routine with the thing, and you know what."
Twilight did. Now, they were back off at the tree again.
"So," Sweetie said. "Could you give any hint as to what guy it is? Initials or anything?"
"Oh, I'm sure you know what guy it is," Pinkie said.
Time seemed to freeze for a moment, and then it kept going.
"Hm," Twilight said.
Pinkie picked up a sandwich. "I think I just felt a chill go down my spine. Must be the wind."
"No," Twilight said. "The wind is cooling, not freezing. It's something else."
"Is it just me," Pinkie said, "or is this sandwich getting bigger?"
"Oh, no," Twilight said. "We're shrinking."
"Then I was right about the thing with the ants?"
"No, this is terrible."
The friends kept shrinking, and fear soon grabbed Pinkie too, though she had a higher threshold for what made her fearful than the others, and she wasn't as fearful, though she feared. She wondered what would happen to all the food, and most of all, her friends. That was the most important part, her friends.
They all got as tiny as ants, but they were still seated there on the picnic blanket. Before anyone had the chance to react, an ant came walking, with a tiny trumpet, blowing tunes out of it.
"Her royal highness, Queen Diamond Tiara," he said, the ant that is.
Pinkie laughed. "Whuuut?"
"Pinkie!" Twilight said. "Take it down a notch."
Diamond Tiara walked out and stepped forward from behind this other ant that had been holding the trumpet.
"Um, hello," she said.
"Is this where you've been?" Sweetie said, running toward her.
"Stop. Stop," the trumpeter said.
Sweetie reached Diamond and hugged her.
"Why, this is most unusual," the trumpeter then said.
Diamond leaned into Sweetie's ear. "They made me their queen. I have no idea what the heck's going on. This is crazy."
"It is," Sweetie said, though in a normal conversation tone. "It sure is. This is why you didn't show up for the picnic."
"We must go to the hive," the ant said.
"Hey," Twilight said, still confused as to what was going on. "What if we don't want to go to the hive?"
"Okay, you can stay here."
Twilight looked at Pinkie, seeking some council. "Um."
"We'll follow you to the hive." Pinkie smiled at the ant, and then winked at Twilight.
"Um," Twilight said. Then, the friends were off to the hive.
They got down in the grass, off the blanket. It was an uneventful walk, with no intrusion or strange events, and they didn't meet any insects, other than more ants, that joined them in their travel back to the hive.
"Hey!" Pinkie said.
"Yes," Twilight said.
"Ants live in hives?"
Spike grabbed Twilight's leg. "What are we even doing? We should go back? You could fix this with your magic, couldn't you?"
"In a jiffy," Twilight said. "But, I'm more curious as to what's going on, so we'll do that later, or at least, I mean, if you don't want to come with us–"
"No, I do want to come with," Spike said. "I was just wondering what was going on."
Sweetie walked ahead of the others, going next to Diamond Tiara.
"Hey," Sweetie said. "What happened? How did you become queen of the ants?"
"Ugh," Diamond said. "I don't even know how to describe it."
"For how long? Did the ants hurt you?"
"No." She shook her head. "The ants have all been really nice to me."
"How does a thing like that even happen?" Sweetie then said.
"You'll see." Diamond Tiara frowned, feeling a tiny bit worried, about something, but Sweetie didn't know what it was.
"I hope I will find out," Sweetie went on, "because this is some weird stuff that's been happening, and I don't want to see you get hurt, you know. You're my friend, and this whole thing is not what we had planned for today at all, so I hope we can just handle this like mature ponies, um, ants, everyone. I hope everything will be okay, because honestly, I don't really know how to feel about it, and it's–"
"It's what?" Diamond said, glaring.
"Well, scaring me a little bit," Sweetie said, looking down into the soggy ground.
The ground was mud beneath their hooves. It was earth. It was a soggy mess, which is the opposite of what they had planned for their picnic, and the quiet stillness of the ponies' disposition was changing into something more uneasy, and worried, afraid. They were more disposed to fear now, and disposed to getting muddy, which is why, on an emotional level, and as a matter of their propositional attitudes about the situation, their dispositions changed too.
They reached a hive, a beehive, that was lying on the ground, and it had a big hole in it. It had fallen down on the ground and been crushed in this collision. Sweetie looked at the hive, that leaned to the side, disposed to the left, west of the tree, and she, Sweetie, was disposed to leaving now.
"You know," Sweetie said. "I don't think I want to be here, anymore."
"Okay," Twilight said. "That is fine. I'll turn you into a normal pony again. I mean, a regular-sized pony."
"Thank you." Sweetie made a little bow, almost pleading for Twilight to do it.
Diamond jumped in front of Twilight. "No, don't leave. I mean." She turned around toward Sweetie. "Don't leave. I want you here."
"Really?" Sweetie said. "Okay, then I won't leave."
They walked along the muddy, soggy ground, getting all the much closer to their goal, which was a beehive, which seemed to double as an ant's nest.
The little ant with the trumpet blew his trumpet again. "Welcome to our hive, everyone. You will stay here until we have prepared the picnic."
"The picnic?" Pinkie said, looking crossways at the ant.
"Oh, yes. We're all having a picnic, and you're welcome to join."
"With our food?" Sweetie said, glaring at the ant.
The ant looked aghast, somehow, though maybe it's doubtful as to whether an ant really can look aghast, although this one did.
"Oh, no. You take me for a petty thief, me and my friends? No, we bring our own food."
"From where?" Sweetie said, squeaking, because she was a little nervous.
"Wheeere?" the ant said. "Why? Everywhere, of course. We're always on a picnic."
Pinkie leaned over Twilight's shoulder. "Eh, should I tell them, or?"
Twilight looked at Pinkie, and then over at the ant. "How can you talk?" she then said.
"We could always talk," the trumpeter-ant said, still holding his trumpet. "I don't remember a time when we couldn't talk."
Pinkie burst of laughing, but it was a nervous laugh. "Ah, you've always been able to talk? That's funny. That's interesting, actually. What else didn't I know about ants?"
"I dunno," Twilight said into her ear. "But maybe we should leave, or do something."
"Do what?"
Twilight whispered back. "We need to figure out what's going on. Now, this is really starting to freak me out."
"They're just ants." Pinkie looked over to them and smiled.
"No," Twilight said. "They're not just ants. These aren't normal ants."
Pinkie hung over Twilight's shoulder, laying her body there. "What are you getting at?"
"I'm saying that something seriously not good is going on, and we need to figure out what."
The ants started chanting in unison. "Picnic. Picnic. Picnic," they said, in different voices that sounded like they came from real people.
"Hey," Spike said, joining in on the whispering. "What do we do now?"
"I don't know," Pinkie said.
"We need to, um." Twilight looked over at the ants. They were gathering in heaps, chanting.
"Picnic. Picnic," they said, louder and louder.
Twilight said to both Pinkie and Spike, "Get out of here, now."
"One question," Pinkie said.
"Whaaat?" Twilight said, straining her voice from having whispered a lot.
"Um."
"What is it?" Twilight's voice got a little raspy, and more annoyed.
"Where's Sweetie Belle, and Diamond Tiara?" Pinkie said, looking around.
"Oh, no," Twilight said, now in a normal voice, and ran off. Pinkie ran after, and Spike took chase behind them. "Hello, Sweetie. You guys."
They ran in the beehive, and inside was a tiny wooden table with seats in it, and on it was a picnic basket, a tiny ant-sized picnic-basket.
"Sweetie Belle," Twilight yelled, and Pinkie joined in.
"Where are you, little buddy?"
Ants swarmed in the room. It looked like a dead and abandoned beehive, and the walls were dry, and looked like they were falling apart.
"Join us," an ant said.
"Yes, join us," another ant joined in, chiming.
"No," Twilight said. "Who are you ants and where did you come from?"
"All I know," an ant said, "is that I want to go on a picnic."
"What do you mean?" Twilight stared around maniacally.
Then, Twilight saw that Sweetie Belle and Diamond Tiara were being carried in the room, by ants.
"Hey," Pinkie said. "You're not eating them, are you?"
"No, they will join us," an ant, just passing by, said. "We're not barbarians."
"Are you sure?" Twilight said. "What are you doing, and why are you carrying them like that?"
A horde of ants came in, all chanting. "Picnic. Picnic. Picnic." But not everyone did. Some ants just scurried around, being quiet, and not making much sound.
"Hey," an ant said. "Do you want to be carried too?"
Twilight charged up her horn.
"Okay," the ant said, running away.
"Okay?"
"Yes," an ant said, walking by. "Okay."
"What?"
"Okay. Okay. Okay, okay," a bunch of them said, in unison, but only just as they were walking by Twilight. Then, they all got quiet, completely quiet.
"What the..." Twilight said, just staring blankly. "Eum."
Pinkie once more leaned into Twilight's ear. "Hey," she said.
"Yes?" Twilight said, entranced by the scene in question.
"They're taking the kids to the picnic table. I just thought you should know."
Twilight flew over there and landed on top of the table.
"What's in the basket?"
"Um, Twilight," Sweetie said, sitting there, looking scared, not because it seemed that way, but because she was scared. "What do I do now?"
Diamond Tiara was just quiet. She was seething, but she didn't say anything.
Twilight pulled off the lid of the basket. Out of it came a bunch of tiny ants, that were tiny in comparison to the ponies in question. "Okay," Twilight said.
"Okay," an ant said, standing next to the tiny table.
"Okay," another said.
"Okay, okay," a bunch of ants burst out.
"No," she said. "No, it's not okay. It's totally not okay, like at all. Will someone explain this?"
Diamond Tiara burst out, "Don't talk to them."
"Why?" Twilight said.
"Just don't."
"No," Twilight said. "I demand an explanation."
"No," an ant said. "No," a hundred ants said.
"I mean, yes, I want an explanation."
An ant came forward, out of the pack, separating itself from it. It had a female voice.
"Why? Just enjoy the picnic."
Twilight grabbed the ant and hovered it above everyone's heads, inside the hive.
"Oh, what are you doing now? All I wanted was to go on a picnic," the ant said, sounding genuinely confused as to the nature of the current circumstances.
Pinkie waved to Twilight. "Hey, Twi. It seems like I'm being picked up too." A bunch of ants picked up Pinkie and carried her toward the table.
Twilight let go of the one ant and focused on Pinkie. She used levitation to grab the ants that carried Pinkie and force them away in different directions.
"I don't know what's going on," Twilight said, "but none of this seems good, like at all, and I don't know what's with these ants, and this place? Pinkie, have you ever heard of anything like this before."
The ants came toward the table. Twilight saw it from the corner of her eye and turned around.
"What are y–"
The ants picked the super-tiny ants that were lying in the basket out of the basket. These ants were ant-sized in comparison to the ants. If the ants had been real people, then these tinier ants looked like ants in proportion to the bigger ants. They were small ants.
"Okay," Twilight said, dumbfounded. The tinier ants were carried away and put down a short distance from the basket.
"Okay," a bunch of ants said, looking at her.
"Are you trying to teach me some sort of moral lesson here?"
An ant came up to her. "We need to talk. These ants are not to be trifled with."
Twilight flinched, and stared at the ant. "But you're also an ant."
"Shh, quiet," the ant said.
The super-tiny ants returned to the basket from where they came, but another flock of ants came up, picking them out, and putting them down a short distance away from the basket, again.
"Can you, like, tell me what's going on?" Twilight said. She looked around. "And where's Spike?"
"That's the thing," the ant said.
"What?"
The ant twiddled its tiny ant-hands. "Spike was separated from the rest of you. He's probably inside that tiny basket right now."
Twilight looked at the basket. "But that basket is way too tiny for Spike."
"Maybe not anymore," the ant said, twiddling further.
Twilight looked back and forth between the ant and the basket. "Okay."
"Okay," a bunch of ants said.
"No, time out."
Twilight grabbed everything inside the room, including Pinkie, Sweetie Belle, and Diamond Tiara, and the ant that had been talking to her, and hovered them up in the air. Then, she walked to the picnic table, and shot a beam of magic at the picnic basket. Nothing happened.
"What is this magic?" she said.
"Oh," the ant that had been talking to her before said from up in the air. "You should probably be careful what you do now."
"Careful?" Twilight looked at her hooves. They were getting black. "No," she said. Her horn shined up, and they turned purple again. Twilight grabbed her horn to make sure that it was still intact. "There's some sort of charm on this place."
Sweetie Belle and Pinkie spun around in the air, and their features were getting blacker, and more spindly. Twilight did the same to them, and they turned back into ponies. Then, Twilight tried doing it to the ant that had been talking to her, but nothing happened.
"Hey," the ant said. "Don't do that. You'll just upset them."
"No," Twilight said. "I can end this now. Just tell me how to break the spell."
"I've been here for two years," the ant said, hovering above her. "If I knew how to break the spell, you think I would be here?"
Twilight sighed, and then she turned to Pinkie and Sweetie. They were turning into ants again. "I've got you," she said, turning them back. "And where's Spike?"
"Bless his name, Spike," the ant said from up in the air. "You'll probably never get him back."
"No," Twilight said. The other ants were just quiet, saying nothing.
The ant spun around, twiddling its arms and legs back and forth. "Hey, you need to let them have their picnic. Otherwise, they'll shrink down."
"No, won't play along," Twilight said, feeling a little shaky. "Not doing this."
Then, Twilight shrunk down. She tried shooting herself with a beam of magic, but nothing happened. And then, in her shock, she dropped all the ants that she had been hovering up in the air.
Pinkie was right next to Twilight now. All the big ants towered above them. Twilight, Pinkie, and Sweetie were still ponies, but they were really small ponies now.
"You know," Twilight said. "I've been through some bizarre and scary things."
"Less talk," Pinkie said, nudging Twilight.
"More action." Twilight agreed.
They both ran, but they didn't get very far. They were picked up and put at a distance from the basket.
"Hey," Twilight said. "I think Spike might be in that basket, and if so, I think that we should help him."
Pinkie nodded. "Obviously, but where's Sweetie Belle?"
The both of them couldn't see Sweetie Belle anywhere. It was as if she had been swallowed up by the earth.
One of the many ants that walked in a line back to the basket said, "Hey, go to the basket. You have to."
"I don't wanna," Twilight said.
Pinkie hummed. "Maybe me should. Hmmm."
"I can't believe you," Twilight said. "We need to find Sweetie Belle."
"But where are we now?" Pinkie grabbed Twilight, and Twilight looked around. Everything around them was brown now. "I think we got even smaller."
"Oh, no," Twilight said.
Many ants crawled around them.
"Keep moving," an ant said.
"Don't stop," another said.
"Picnic. Picnic," a third said.
"What happens if we stop moving?" Twilight yelled.
The ant that said picnic came forward and handed a picnic basket to Twilight.
"Here," it said. "Picnic. You need to eat out of this basket. Otherwise, you'll shrink, and disappear."
"Nonsense," Twilight said.
She shot a tiny beam of magic at Pinkie, but nothing happened.
Pinkie gasped. "Oh, no. Holy heck."
Twilight was just beyond herself now. "I have some of the most potent magic in Equestria, but I can't stop this?"
"Then what is magic for?" Pinkie said.
"Please," the ant said. "It has to be this way."
"I am not participating in your picnic." Twilight sat down on the ground and crossed her arms. "And that's final."
Pinkie took something out of the basket. "Oh, a sandwich."
"Pinkie," Twilight said.
Then, Pinkie disappeared, and Twilight was floating now. Then, she landed on a rocky, hard surface, that was curved and uneven. It felt like she was on a mountain of some kind.
"Another fallen has arrived," an ant said. He ran forward with a sandwich. "Please, eat this. We need to share if we are to survive in this place."
Twilight was about to punch the sandwich, but then, she stopped herself. He pulled the sandwich back, holding it like someone would hold a precious child.
"Pleeease," he said. "We need to shaaare." He whimpered, as he spoke. "There aren't an unlimited number of sandwiches, and we're at a picnic. That's the most important thing. Don't you ever forget that we're at a picnic."
"I think I'm about to faint," Twilight said.
The place was a rocky landscape of hills and valleys. It looked like a canyon, and around her were hundreds upon hundreds of picnic tables with ants, furiously eating their sandwiches, just eating, and eating, and eating.
"Join us in our picnic," he said. "You need to be in the picnic spirit. Otherwise, the ants will get upset, and that's when you fall down a level."
"Okay," Twilight said, reaching her hoof out to accept the sandwich. He gave it to her. She took a bite. "What are we all doing here?"
"I don't know. All we know is that if you're not picnicking, you're shrinking, so the important thing to remember is to keep picnicking. It's the only way." He stared at her with gravitas.
"That's too bad," Twilight said. "Isn't there a way to stop all this though?"
"Yes," he said. "If you get enough in the picnic spirit, and prove to the world and the stars that you're a true picnicker, then you will ascend to the next level."
Twilight was finding this all rather hard to grasp, understand, and most of all, take seriously.
"Are you saying." She took a bite of the sandwich. "Are you schaying that if I care enough about going on a picnic, I can grow larger?"
"Myth has it," he said, "that the one that has achieved perfect picnic-ness, the one that always wants to be on a picnic, all the time, no matter what happens, will even become a real person again."
Twilight looked at him, and then spit out a bite of the sandwich.
"Th- that's not a good idea," he said, whimpering and shaking. "Please. You must eat the bite that you just spat out. It's important. You need to show respect for the picnic."
"To be honest," Twilight said. "I'm finding this whole thing a bit outlandish, and I'm sure that wanting to go on a picnic all the time, no matter what happens, is impossible."
"Noo," he said, groaning. "No, don't say that."
He turned into a giant in front of Twilight, and then, he was gone, and Twilight descended into whatever it is that one descends into, in this place.
"I wonder if Pinkie is still trapped in the second picnic," Twilight said. "Third? Not that it matters."
Now, she was surrounded by what looked like tumbleweeds, flying around. They were grey balls of something, fuzz, smudge, goo? They flew around her, bouncing up and down. In front of Twilight was a single sandwich. Twilight picked it up with her magic.
"Eat it," a voice said. "Eat it, or we will hurt you. We will kill you."
"No," Twilight said, looking around.
It struck her that everyone she had been meeting was an ant, but she was still an alicorn, one of the most powerful creatures in the world, albeit a very tiny one, but she still had her magic, and she was not afraid.
"Come out, wherever you are," Twilight said.
An ant came running, hollering, holding a spear. Twilight grabbed the spear and threw it on the ground.
"What are you doing?" Twilight said. "This is crazy. You're acting like a savage."
The ant picked up the spear. Twilight grabbed it again and broke it in two.
"My spear," it said.
More ants came running, hollering, hooting, and tooting, making sounds with their tiny ant-mouths.
One ant came from behind Twilight and grabbed her. "You eat the sandwich or we will eat you. We cannot risk a person like you getting smaller and have all that food disappear. You understand? You understand? We need to survive. If you don't want to live, and the only way to live is to eat the sandwich, then we will have to eat you. Please, understand. Please."
Twilight threw off the ant that held her in its grip. Spears came flying toward her. Twilight flew up in the air, and grabbed all the ants she could see, hovering them up, like she had done before.
"Stop!"
"No," an ant said. "You don't understand. We don't want to die."
"That's completely ridiculous," Twilight said. "I've been here a while, and I haven't died yet."
An ant waddled in the air. "But the smaller you get, the closer you get to death."
Twilight yelled, "How do you know?"
"Because," another ant said. "When you get small enough, you have to disappear completely. There's only one path. Eventually, you will become, like, an atom, and then you won't even exist anymore."
Twilight dropped them all. "How long have you been here?"
"Forty-three years," an ant said.
"Twenty-two years," another said. "You need to eat sandwiches to survive. It's the only way."
"Why do you want to eat me so badly?"
"Look around," an ant said, reaching out its arms. "Do you see any food?"
Around Twilight was a landscape of small shapes and doodles, flying around, and these pieces of dust, or whatever it was, flew everywhere around her. There were yellows, sharp yellows, and greens, unnatural colors. Twilight didn't recognize the landscape around her, but she figured this is what you might find inside a petri dish, should you have the misfortune of living in one. Almost everything, it seemed, except the ants, geometric patterns, floated around her.
"I don't know," Twilight said.
"We have to eat new arrivals," another ant said, meekly. "It's the only way of ascending."
"That's utterly bananas," Twilight shouted, hardly even noticing her own words. "You have to stop this. You have become monsters, all of you. Think of what you friends and family would think if they found out about this. You do have friends and family from where you came from, right?"
"Honestly," the ant closest to Twilight said. "I can't really remember. I just remember there always being a picnic." She began crying. "Picnic," she said. "Picnic. Picnic. Have to remember."
"Remember?" Twilight said, staring harshly at the scene. "Because you die if you forget that it's a picnic?"
"I didn't choose this," she said. "It's a picnic. It's always been a picnic. I don't want to die. I don't want to die."
"Let's, um, calm down?" Twilight said, feeling concerned about her, and also, being afraid of her. "There has to be a way of solving this crazy thing."
"Down in the lower levels," she said, "ants starve all the time. There's no hope. No escape." She grabbed Twilight. "Picnic forever." She gnawed at Twilight's leg. Twilight instinctively picked her up with a purple hue and threw her so far away that she disappeared into the distance.
"Picnic forever, eh?" Twilight said, glaring at the strange scene before her. The other ants kept at a distance, now aware of her powers. "We'll see about that."
"What are you going to do?" an ant said.
"I will stop the picnic," Twilight said, looking at him, and staring at him with determination in her eyes. "Once and for all."
"Please don't," an ant said. "We don't want to go back down to the lower level. They're crazy down there."
"No," Twilight said. "This strange and bizarre tragedy stops, and it stops with me." Twilight took a deep breath, and readied herself. She wasn't even herself sure what she was doing, but she did some breathing, and remained calm enough. "I'm not at a picnic. Not at a picnic. No picnic. No picnic."
Twilight noticed herself shrinking down, getting all the more small by the second, and then, she was in an entirely new area. It had many huts that were spread out over a monotone landscape of brown, like a desert. It looked like no life lived anywhere, and then, ants came out from all directions.
"Feed. Feed. Picnic. Feed. Eat. Picnic," something said, but it wasn't the ants. It sounded like it blared from elsewhere. Twilight looked around from where the sound came and noticed two loudspeakers that were attached to a hut, some distance off. "Feed it. Picnic-feeding. Feed, and stay alive."
Ants began shoving things into Twilight's mouth. First, she sank down on the ground, just from shock, being surrounded by ants pushing things into her mouth. She had no idea what it was, but it didn't taste good. It tasted like dirt. It kept on going. Twilight started gagging. She got her bearings and pushed all the ants off, like she had done before.
She coughed, and her eyes teared up from the choking sensations. "Sweet Celestia."
The ants around her backed away, and then, unexpectedly to her, they all ran at her. She dodged between them and found a hole in the molasses of ants that were coming toward her, slipping through, and running, and then, she flew up in the air. The ants started tossing things at her. It looked like dirt. Some of it came in her mouth. She spit it out. She flew even higher up in the air, and now, they started missing.
They landscape around her looked like, well, nothing. Everything was covered in a thick mist that made it hard to see anything at all, and the ground was a barren landscape, only visible through the contrast between the white mist, that had a shine to it, and the brown, dirty blackness. Where did the light come from? Twilight didn't know. And there were many tiny huts on the ground, like those of the buffalos.
Many more ants came, continuing to toss things at Twilight.
"Please," an ant said from the smog beneath her. She could barely make out who it was. It sounded like a young child. "Eat, please. You have to. Otherwise, you'll starve, and you don't want to know what happens when you starve."
Twilight just shook her head. This had gone from amusing, to disturbing, to horrifying in like ten minutes.
"Please," Twilight said. "Don't throw food at me. I can eat of my own free will."
"No," another ant said. "You don't understand. You really don't understand. Come down."
"No," Twilight said.
The ants began piling on top of each other, making a giant hill that moved upward, closer and closer to Twilight. From inside it came groans and moans. It sounded like suffering. It sounded like fear. It sounded like death.
"Stop it."
Twilight did as she had two times before, and grabbed all of them, and at the bottom of the pile were dead ants, lying still on the ground, being smooshed down by the ants above, as the pile grew larger and larger.
"Where? Who? Why would you do this?"
"Because," an ant said. "The next level down, is hell. You need help. You're not well. If you're not eating, or talking about eating, or thinking about eating, you're not well."
Twilight blurted, "I thought this was about a picnic."
"No, we don't have time to worry about a picnic."
"Eat, eat. Build, build. Eat, eat. Build, build," Twilight heard another ant say. It kept repeating it in the background as the other ants were talking.
"If we ever want to get away from hell, we need to keep eating, so please put us down," an ant whined, one that was close to Twilight. "You don't understand. Please. This is not good. You aren't feeling well. Let me help you."
"Um," Twilight said. "Hey, you guys. Don't you hate picnics?"
"No, no, no, no," the ant said.
"Me, personally?" Twilight said. "I don't like picnics at all." Twilight was shaken and horrified at the situation, and she was angry, angry that anything like this could ever happen in the wide, wide world, but she needed to focus. She thought about her friends. It was time to put up or shut up now, and she knew which one she preferred.
"Eat, eat. Bu–" The ant quieted down.
Everything was quiet now.
Everything was quietude.
Then, the ants disappeared into the distance, and everything disappeared in the distance. Twilight readied herself for what was to come. They all had said that this next place would be hell, and Twilight didn't want to go to hell, so she readied herself, steadying herself.
Then, she heard a screech, or several of them. She looked around. She didn't see anything. She noticed that she was still flying high up in the air. She flew downward. There was something in the far, far distance, some type of life. Something lived there, and Twilight wanted to find out what, and fast, and that's what she cared about right now.
The screams got louder and louder, until it was almost ear-piercing, and down there in the distance, Twilight saw a black lump, consisting presumably of ants, and she moved closer. All the ants were attached to one another, wiggling back and forth. Twilight felt something like a gravitational pull. She was being pulled toward them. She grabbed the entire lump of ants with her magic. The screams got so loud that Twilight got vertigo, and she let go, falling on the ground.
Now, she screamed at the top of her lungs. "When I find out who did this spell, there will be hell, hell to pay, for that person."
She was really upset at what was happening, and how it was even possible. These ants were suffering all right. Another wave of invisible pulling power moved Twilight, dragging her into the mass of ants, but Twilight held off, creating a magical barrier between herself and the ants, and then, making the barrier thicker and thicker, to increase the distance between herself and the huddled mass, which she was getting sucked into. She felt something tingle in her hooves, and saw that she was becoming an ant again. Twilight shot magic and stopped it, turning back into a pony.
"No picnic for meee," Twilight said, almost growling the words. She felt delirious, not even believing her own eyes.
The scene disappeared, and everything around her disappeared. Everything got white for a second. Then, there was only a green meadow, with a single bench on it, and a pony was sitting there, like Twilight. A real pony was there! Twilight was extremely happy. She ran forward and tripped, falling on the ground.
Twilight blinked a few times, waking up. The pony stood above her. "Hello there," she said. "How you doing?"
"Okay." Twilight stood up. "Who are you? And what is this? And what the- I just want to get home." Twilight grabbed the pony, and then, sank down into her fur, crying.
"That's okay," the pony said. "I know how it is. I've been stuck here longer than you."
Twilight took a step back. They were on a meadow, and the sky was blue. "How is that even possible?" Twilight said.
"Let's have a conversation," the pony said, sitting down on the bench, and patting it.
Twilight could tell she was a unicorn. She was light pink, and with a mane that was striped red and white, like a candy stick. Twilight sat down beside her.
"What now?"
She looked away from Twilight. "Eternity. Let's meditate together."
"What if you want to get out of here?" Twilight said, confused, and not wanting to hear it. "I don't want to meditate. I want to get back to my friends." Twilight's breath was getting shallow, and she felt angry, angry and betrayed somehow.
"There is no out of here," she said. "Let's meditate. There are no longings. There is only you, me, and the world." She closed her eyes, just sitting there, doing nothing.
"No," Twilight yelled, right into her ear. She jumped. "How did you get here?"
She looked at Twilight, smiling very, very, very calmly, like a monk. "I got here because I didn't listen." She looked out into the distance. "I wanted to live forever. I realize how foolish that was now. There is no forever. Forever will never come, not in a thousand years. There is just your subjective experience of the now, and when that is gone, there is nothing to worry about, because there will be no you to worry about it."
"That's great and all," Twilight said, moving further away from her, on the bench. "But I still don't want to die, and I think, if you have any sense, you shouldn't want to die either."
"Come closer," she said, patting the bench. Twilight did. "I used to think like you, but then, I realized that fear is just an emotion, and when you strip it away, there is only the moment, and all its possibilities."
"No," Twilight said. "You can't let go of all your longings, because there needs to be something that makes you want to keep living."
"Yes," she said. "The wind!" The wind, in that moment, came blowing, hitting both their faces.
"I'm fearful," Twilight said, "of a lot of things, and that fear makes me strong, not weak. It's what makes me want to get back to my friends, and I will."
"I have been here for hundreds of years," the gentle mare said. She looked the age of Twilight, young. "Sit down."
Twilight had stood up. "We can't all become monks when it fits us. We need to live our lives. I can't forget about everything, the way you did, just out of convenience. I need to get back, because I actually care about my friends, and I will never give up." She walked away and stood in front of the mild mare. "You will help me."
"You are an alicorn," she said. "Such a strange coincidence."
"What's a coincidence?"
The mare leaned over the side of the bench and looked down beneath it, bending almost like an acrobat. She was still in the same seated position that she had been before, but she was leaning now, her entire upper body making a bow, a half-circle, around the bench. Twilight walked to where she was looking. There was writing on the bench.
"What's that?" Twilight said.
"If an alicorn should ever come here and say those words, the curse will be removed. The one I laid on this place will be, gone," she said, making sure that Twilight understood that it was indeed she that laid the curse.
"Wow," Twilight said. "It was you? How, and why? What did you do?"
"I'm sorry," she said, "for one thing. And that's this. I meditate a lot on the suffering that I've caused, and I figured out that the punishment I'm now getting, being stuck here, isn't much of a punishment at all, and I haven't gotten what's coming to me yet, because ponies don't know what I've done. That's why I'm happy that you're here."
Twilight shook her head, a little confused about all this, and curious, and a tad angry, knowing this was the mare that caused a lifetime of suffering for all these ants. "Don't you think you will be getting away with this," Twilight said, glaring, and standing in a battle stance, preparing for what was to come.
"Oh, no," she replied. "You don't understand me. This is what I want."
"What do you want?" Twilight said. "I could end your life right here and now, so choose your words very carefully now. Do you know what I saw?"
"No," she said, lying down a little on the bench, supporting her body on one hoof. She was very thin and slender. "What did you see?"
"They were eating each other," Twilight said. "They were crawling on top one another, trying to avoid hell, which is a giant pile of bodies, stuck together, bent in painful positions, and- and, now I'm here, and I found out you did it. I don't even understand." Twilight was tearing up now. "What could even possess a person to do such a thing?"
"I was trying to come up with a spell that would make me live forever," she said. "I wanted my father and my mother to come with me on this journey. We would all live forever, and at any cost, too. I was willing to give anything, pay anything, do anything, and it turns out that's not a very healthy attitude to have."
Twilight's horn lit up a little bit. The pink mare, that was of a lighter hue than Pinkie, closed her eyes. Twilight stopped.
"No," Twilight said. "No."
"You want to hurt me, don't you?" she said, opening her eyes, slowly, and peeking out from beneath her eyelids, squinting. "Don't you?"
"I feel that I want to hurt you, but that doesn't mean I will."
"No," she said. "That's what I want. You kill me, and the curse will be reversed forever."
"What?" Twilight said.
"Look at the bench," she said, so calm that she sounded almost absentminded.
Twilight did. "It just says, kill, at will, and the will, to kill," Twilight said, seeing that it read almost like a little poem.
"If you kill me," she said, "of your own free will, then everything will go back to normal."
Twilight stepped back. "But I don't want to kill you."
"You seemed more than willing a moment ago."
"No, I was just angry."
"But you see," she said, "the spell I put, the anti-aging spell, had the remarkable side-effect of making me impervious to all things, and that's why I created this place. I thought that if I could just make myself small and vulnerable enough, I would surely die, and I put the same spell on my parents. Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday. We were having a picnic, but never could I have known that all this would happen."
"You don't just, create, spells," Twilight said. "It's extremely dangerous, if you don't understand what it is you're doing."
"I don't understand what I'm doing," she said. "Strike me down. It's the only way to save that mass of ants you saw. It's all my fault, and I'm not afraid of death anymore. I don't want to live, so you're not stealing a life from the world. I want this."
"No," Twilight said. "Unlike you, there are boundaries I won't cross, and if I have to stay here forever, then so be it."
She nodded. "Then come join me and meditate." She patted the bench.
Twilight slapped her hoof away and drew her up and off the bench. "No, there has to be another way."
"Yes," she said. "There is another way."
Twilight was relieved.
"Another pony could come here and make the sacrifice."
"No," Twilight said. "Does it have to be an alicorn?"
"Yes," she said. "Kill me, and say the words on the bench."
Twilight just stared at her.
"Please."
Twilight shook her head. "No, the only thing that will die here is your strange obsession with death."
"I'm not obsessed. Let's meditate."
"No, let's not meditate."
She moved toward the bench. Twilight struck it with her magic, exploding it.
"Hm," she said. "Strange."
Twilight walked up beside her. "Just stop doing this to yourself. You don't have to die. No one has to die, and you don't deserve to die because of what you've done. Who decides that? You? Because of the counter-spell that you yourself made up. I reject your counter-spell, and I especially reject your will to see me kill you. That's what will die here today."
"Hm?" she said. "Why?"
"Your will to see me kill will go away, and every day, will you regret, the need to see me kill you. Okay?" Twilight said.
She stood back, suddenly looking angry. "What are you doing? Go away."
"I'm improvising," Twilight said. "You don't fear death, but you want to die. You don't fear life, so you want to live?" Twilight said, rhyming, like Pinkie had before. Twilight was trying to come up with a counter-counter-spell on the spot.
"You don't even know what you're doing," she said, now yelling into Twilight's face. "You're doing it all wrong."
"You do care," Twilight said. "I can see it in your eyes. Caring, eyes? You have caring eyes." Twilight looked into her eyes. "You're just afraid, aren't you?"
"No," she said.
Then, Twilight went and looked at what was carved into her bench. Twilight knew that spells were often poems with aphoristic meaning, and if the meaning was true, then the spell worked. "Kill at will and the will to kill? More like, live to give, and the gift will live." Twilight nodded, taking a deep breath. She was half-panicked, not even sure if it was going to work. "Life is a gift," she then said.
Nothing happened.
"You're supposed to be a powerful alicorn," the mare said, sitting down in the rubble of the bench. "You can't make up spells on a whim. It's more complicated than that."
Indeed, Twilight found it hard to believe that phrases like "life is a gift," could be objectively true.
"Then what do you think?" Twilight said. "How do you get out of here?"
"I don't even know anymore," she said, sobbing.
"There, there," Twilight said, carefully grabbing her. This whole thing had gotten kind of weird and outlandish, in her eyes, but Twilight held steady, and knew that there had to be a way to get back again. "Maybe if we do it together," Twilight said, "we could get back again."
"Are you sure?"
"I don't know about you, but I've gotten out of way worse jams than this one," Twilight said, smiling.
"How do we get back?" she said. "The curse is irreversible."
Twilight just walked over to the piece of wood that had the words. It was still intact.
"We need to stop taking these words seriously," she said, picking up the wood, and pulverizing it with her magic.
"What now?" she said. "It is what it is, I guess." She shrugged. "You sure you don't want to meditate?"
"We can meditate," Twilight said, "when we get back."
She shook her head. "I told you. The curse is irreversible."
"No curse is irreversible," Twilight said. "I want to reverse the curse. You say it after me."
She did. "I want to reverse the curse," she said.
"I want to reverse the curse," both said in unison, over and over again, at the same time.
"I want to reverse the curse. I want to reverse the curse."
She tossed herself on the ground, melodramatically. "Oh, it's hopeless."
"Only if you believe it," Twilight said. "Only if you believe it." She grabbed the other pony's chin and pushed it to eye-level. "Chin up."
"I wish I hadn't cast that curse in the first place," she said.
Twilight sat down beside her. "Me too."
"So what to do now?"
"Let's meditate," Twilight said, and they did.
They both sat there, quietly, for a while.
"Hey," Twilight said, after a while, not really knowing how much time had passed, a minute or an hour?
"Yes?" she said.
"I could kill you and then revive you again, immediately, before your body has broken down so much that you can't be saved."
"Okay," she said. She took a step back. "Will this be painful?"
"Yes," Twilight said. "But that should be of no concern to you."
"No, wait." Twilight shot a beam at her, and her heart stopped. She fell on the ground, dropping dead.
"You will stand trial," Twilight said to her body, wincing. "I'm sorry, but it has to be this way." She then remembered the words. "Kill, at will, and the will, to kill."
She then shot another beam at the mare. Her heart started beating. Then they grew. They both grew. Everything grew, and then, Twilight was back at the blanket with the basket and the stuff. Pinkie was already sitting there.
"Hey," Twilight said.
Pinkie slung herself toward Twilight, embracing her. "Twilight." She sniffed.
"Pinkie," Twilight said. "How did you get here?"
"I don't know," Pinkie said. "I'm sorry. Those sandwiches were really tasty, the ones the guy gave to me, and the next thing I knew, I was back here. It's the weirdest thing ever."
"You achieved perfect picnic-ness?" Twilight said, shocked at this strange twist.
"What's that mean?" Pinkie said, not letting go of Twilight.
Twilight gently pushed her off. "Nothing important."
Then, ponies rained down over the field, falling out of thin air, and landing in different places. A few dozen ponies here and there landed all around, and then, more ponies popped up. Thousands popped up in all directions and corners of the place, and soon, the field was filled to the brim with ponies, unicorns, pegasí, and earth ponies alike.
"Wow," Pinkie said. "This sure has been a strange day."
"Sure has," Twilight said.
A pony came running. It was the pony from what seemed like a dream, the abyss that Twilight had been stuck in. "Hello, I'm so sorry for everything. I'm here to hand myself into custody."
"Good," Twilight said.
Spike came running and grabbed Twilight's leg. She wiggled it, not really knowing who or what it was but he remained there, and then, she saw him, and she smiled. Next, Sweetie Belle and Diamond Tiara came running.
"You won't believe what we've seen," Sweetie said.
"Oh, I think I will," Twilight said. "I think I will." She turned to the pony in question that had been behind all of this in the first place. "As for you." The mare with candy-cane mane frowned. "I've seen a lot of ponies reformed before, and I'm more than willing to give you a second chance, even though you probably don't deserve it."
"What are you going to do?" she said.
"Make you repair what you've broken," Twilight said.
Ponies gathered and clutched around Twilight, Pinkie, Spike, Sweetie, and Diamond.
A little colt came walking. "She's the one behind this. You shouldn't give her a second chance. Do you have any idea what happened down there?"
Twilight shrugged. "I believe in second chances. Now, you will start by apologizing to every single one of them."
She leaned forward, whispering. "But they will kill me."
"You're the one that hurt them," Twilight said. "Show them that you've changed. Or else, we might send you to Tartarus."
"Okay, okay," she said.
Twilight did a little glow around her mouth, increasing her volume. "Make a line."
All the ponies did, almost spontaneously, and then, they all passed by the culprit. "I'm sorry," she said. Twilight waved for another one to come forward. "I'm sorry," she said again. Twilight was relieved that she seemed to be genuinely sorry, and this was true, even down in the pit.
"What am I going to do?" a stallion said, walking out of the line. "How will I live after this?"
"You'll try," Twilight said, sighing to herself. "We'll all try. It's always like this. It has to be this way. Every time we go out on an adventure, we get scared, and we don't know what to do, but then, we learn our lesson in the end, and no matter how much you suffer, just remember this."
"What?" he said.
Twilight looked at him, leaning her head to the side. "You're still alive, my friend." She smiled at him. He smiled back. "I don't have all the answers though. I really don't."
Pinkie walked up to Sweetie. "I hope you're all right."
"Yeah," she said. "Now that we've been through all this crazy stuff together, can you tell me who it was that you're talking about?"
"My mouth is sealed." She grabbed a sandwich. A slice of cheese slipped out of it. She winked.
"Oh, you're right," Sweetie said, turning to Diamond Tiara. "I did know who it was. I wish you luck."
"Thank you," Pinkie said.
"I'm happy we can all return to our lives," Sweetie said to Diamond. "There's one thing that confuses me still."
"What?" she said.
"They made you their queen? Why?"
"Oh," she said. "I ate a lot of their sandwiches, and I noticed that ants that didn't want to do it shrank and disappeared."
"Uh-huh," Sweetie said, nodding slowly.
Someone came running. "Well," Pinkie said, smiling with a playful grimace on her face. "When you speak of the devil."
"Pinkie," he said, and it was none other than the one and only, Cheese Sandwich. "You were stuck there too?"
"Yes," Pinkie said.
"That's terrible."
"No, it's not," she said.
"It's not?"
"You know why?" She took charge, staring at him.
"Why?"
She jumped on him. "You're here now." She kissed him. Then she jumped off.
"Okay, it's not," he said, smiling, and standing up.
"Okay," a bunch of ponies said. "Okay, okay," more of them said, out of the hundreds, and maybe thousands that were there. Twilight couldn't tell. She was just angry, and as yet, a little confused.
"Not okay," Twilight said.
"We're just mimicking you," one pony said, "to make you feel more comfortable."
"Hey, I don't say okay all that often," Twilight said, feeling a little insulted.
"You kind of do," Pinkie said, leaning over to her.
"No, I don't."
"Okay," Pinkie said.
"Whatever," Twilight said, sitting down on the ground.
The mare sat down beside Twilight.
"Was that all of them?" Twilight said.
"Yes," she said. "At least that was all that wanted me to apologize. Look." She pointed, and Twilight followed her hoof, seeing that many ponies were walking away in different directions, just leaving the strange scene that had been created there.
"Aren't they going to thank you?" Spike said. "You're the hero of the day. You saved them."
"Meh," Twilight said. "Most of them are probably just confused. Some of them have been stuck inside a nightmare for decades."
"What did you see down there, Twilight?" Spike said, a little sad, and concerned about what in the world Twilight could be talking about.
"Oh," she said. "That's a story for another time."
"My name is Snuffles," the mare said, snuffling up beside Twilight.
Twilight didn't move, but she said, "You have a lot to atone for."
"Just tell me what to do."
Spike sat down beside Twilight. "You're getting a second student."
Twilight sighed. "You know what, Spike?"
"What?"
"I guess."
"Yeah," he said.
"I guess," Twilight said again.
Now that the crowd had dispersed, all of them couldn't help noticing how pretty the sky was, and the wind. The wind was heftier and more soothing, more cooling, and nicer, better, friskier than ever. The wind blew some leaves off that landed in Twilight's mane.
"I guess autumn is coming soon," Twilight said to Pinkie, but then, she noticed that Pinkie, in turn, was stuck snuggling with Cheese Sandwich. Well, they had been through a near-death experience, or something akin to that, after all, so Twilight didn't blame them. "I still have a lot of questions," she said, feeling the wind.
"Hey," Sweetie said, sitting down beside Twilight. "Diamond Tiara is going home. She needs to explain to her parents where she has been."
Spike shook his head, looking out in the distance. "I would like to be a fly in the room when that happens."
"Yes," Twilight said, stifling a laugh.
"If autumn is coming," Spike said, "you know what that means?"
Twilight looked at Spike, tired and somewhat dead-eyed. "What?"
"No ants," he said, nudging her with his elbow. "Huh? Huh? Anybody? Ba-dish," he said, simulating a pair of drumsticks in his hands.
Twilight tried stifling the next laugh, remaining serious, but the laugh came, and then, Twilight burst out, laughing even louder. "You know," she said. "I think everything is going to turn out okay."
"What to do now?" Sweetie said.
Twilight looked at the basket. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but what were we doing before all this happened?"
"Yes," Sweetie said, picking out a sandwich. "Hey, it looks like they didn't steal any of our food. We lucked out." She took a bite.
"I'm happy to be around you guys," Twilight said. "Really happy."
"Me too," Spike said.
"Me three," Pinkie said, jumping up.
"Me, um, four?" Cheese Sandwich said.
"I love you guys," Sweetie said. And they all hugged, like one big happy family, and somehow, in that moment, putting their troubles behind them.