The Time of Your Life
In every place, in every era, there exist certain, solid facts. Stars are hot. Space is empty. Under the right conditions, amino acids and fats and sugars come together to form a whole that suddenly acts instead of being acted on—life exists, in spite of every effort to the contrary. And wherever life evolves, from the instant that there are three beings that share some bits and pieces down in their cells, it is universally true that one of them will wish to kill the others, one will wish to mate with the others, and one will wish to have the others over to play games and dance to music.
The Party, as such, had existed almost from the very beginning. For there is, in truth, only one party. Somewhere out of space, somewhere beyond time, it carries on for an eternity and a single instant. In the center, the guests—for there are only guests at The Party, never a host—dance to music that pulsates here, that there glides on strings. Off to one side, the party is somber, respectful, polite. Elsewhere it is wild, bodies thrusting against one another, sweat flying through the air. In a neglected corner lies all parties of social necessity, of awkward handshakings and small talk, and even farther back stands every awkward guest who ever felt they didn't quite belong.
They are all there, you see. Every guest at every party, ever. You are there. You are there more than once, though you will never meet yourself.
Slowly, and yet in no time at all—in a land without time these are not mutually exclusive—the Party became aware of this fact; that its guests were often duplicates of themselves. And it began to think, ponderously, as personifications sometimes do.
And what it thought was:
I want to know more.
Twilight Sparkle pushed open the door to Sugarcube Corner, and was nearly blasted full in the face with a wad of deflated balloons.
“Ooops! Sorry, Twilight,” said Pinkie Pie, smiling sheepishly from behind her party canon. “Just doing some calibration tests for Rarity's birthday next week.”
Twilight looked around the interior of the bakery at the glass display cases, the china serving utensils, the family pictures on the walls, and chose not to comment.
“So what brings you here?” said Pinkie Pie.
“Actually,” said Twilight, lifting up a balloon with magic, “this.” Pinkie looked at her quizzically. Twilight sighed. But there was no getting around it. This had been bugging her for weeks, and, frankly, there was no other means left to her to figure it out. Even if it meant expecting Pinkie Pie to give her a straight answer. “Pinkie, where do these come from?”
“Ooooh, that's a good question. I always thought that balloons grew on great big balloon trees—or maybe they just sort of pop out of the ground—oh, or maybe up in the sky there's a mighty balloon kingdom, and when a balloon's time has come it deflates and falls down to Equestria, where they're gathered by local farmhands and sent off to be inflated all over again! That one's kind of sad, though.”
Twilight shook her head. “No, I mean, where did you get them.”
“At the store.” It was a very straightforward answer, very straightforward indeed, and Twilight thought she knew why.
“No you didn't. You're lying.”
“I... huh?”
Twilight sighed. “It all started after that incident with the 99 red balloons. It got me thinking, and, well... Pinkie, I did some math.” Pinkie Pie twitched nervously (although that was a pretty normal reaction to Twilight uttering the phrase “I did some math” and needn't mean anything). “You use more party supplies in a week than any store in Ponyville stocks.”
“I do?” Pinkie Pie gave an innocent smile, hampered only slightly by the obvious undercurrent of worry on her face.
“And you don't special order them either. I checked.”
“Twilight, have you been stalking me in the name of science again?”
“No. Maybe. Anyway the point is, where do you get all this stuff?”
Pinkie looked even more uncomfortable. “Just... places.”
“Places like?”
“Oh... nowhere.”
“Nowhere isn't a place.”
There was nothing funny in Pinkie's voice, or maybe in the look she gave Twilight as she said, “Twilight, I think you should stop asking questions now.”
That was not a suggestion one made to Twilight Sparkle. She gave her friend a hard look.
“It's just..." said Pinkie, cheerful and distraught all at once. "I think you're really close to discovering my main function. And you might not like it if you do.”
For a brief second, Twilight almost thought she was serious. But of course, that was ridiculous. Pinkie Pie having a dark secret? The mere thought was enough to make her giggle. “No, really, Pinkie, what's going on? You just have a secret party stockpile someplace, right?”
“Yep! That's it, you caught—no!” Pinkie's tone shifted abruptly from joy to horror.
“No?”
“You can't bring her through! It's way way way too soon to even think about—no wait don't—!”
Twilight didn't have a chance to ask what was going on—but then it wouldn't have done her much good, because the next second the universe exploded. Everything was light and color and sound and dance and the taste of things you could eat in one bite and the taste of victory and defeat and the sweat of a stranger in your mouth and sore muscles and a pounding headache, and insane bursts of adrenaline bearing her into the sky and—
And, slowly, pink began to dominate the other colors.
“Twilight? Twilight! Wake up! Say something!” Pinkie Pie bent close over Twilight's prone form, sprawled out across the floor of Sugarcube Corner. Black scorch marks outlined her body—the only indication that anything out of the ordinary had happened.
“P-Pinkie?” Twilight groaned, eyelids fluttering open.
“You're okay!” Pinkie hauled Twilight into a huge hug, despite the latter's wincing protest.
When they parted, Twilight looked at her for a moment in bewilderment. She pointed to her mane, and said, “Um, you've got some...”
“Oh, right.” Pinkie Pie pulled the flaming bits of streamer from her mane and stomped them out.
“Pinkie, what just...?”
“Um... I'm not sure you want to know that Twilight.”
“It's a little late for that, don't you think?” she said, not quite so jovially as she meant to.
“Well... it's like there's this great big party going on all the time, but it's really made up of every party that's ever happened or ever going to happen, but it's also kind of a separate thing, like it's above them—and anyway I'm sort of his agent or his avatar or something like that—and he just... tried to introduce himself to you.”
“Oh. Well that explains that, then—” Twilight stopped dusting herself off and stared ahead, eyes widening. “I saw... myself. A bunch of times...”
Pinkie Pie gulped. “Twilight, maybe you shouldn't try to—”
“I saw myself in the future. Way in the future. I—I'm going to get married. And have foals. When I get older I... I'm going to look exactly like my mother!” she said with sudden horror. She lifted her mane with a hoof, giving it a sad look. “Well... maybe I can dye it.” She paused again, mumbling, “I'd even managed to forget about my fourth birthday, what a disaster that was.”
“I'm so, so, so sorry, Twilight. That was not supposed to happen! Bad entity from beyond space and time!” said Pinkie, thrusting a hoof at the ceiling. “You know you can't just do that to ponies! He's a little overeager—he is a party, after all... But he's learning! That's what he's got me for. Even though I couldn't stop him in time...”
“It’s fine. I think I'm going to be okay.”
“But, but, but, you saw a whole bunch of time and space all in one spot and you saw your own future and past and your mind might not be able to make sense of it all and you might snap and—”
Twilight silenced her with a glare. “Excuse me? What did you just say?”
It was really hard to keep track of. Pinkie had to think for a minute. “You might snap?”
“Back.”
“Your mind might not be able to make sense of—Ohhhhh.”
“Yeah.” Twilight huffed, and turned towards the exit. “Besides, Pinkie, it's just a basic compression of time and space into a single point, like you said. You act like I've never peeked beyond the veil before. I'm just glad I didn't have to kill anything this time...” Twilight shuddered. “The sounds they make when they die...” And with that she was gone out the door.
Pinkie sat down on the floor, hard. A voice that was like pounding bass and low conversation and awkward silence rang in her mind.
“Yes,” Pinkie agreed. “You are very lucky she doesn't hold a grudge.”