Twilight closed the hefty weathered volume in front of her with a thump and a burst of violet light. The library's stagnant air drifted away from the falling pages, and silence rapidly ensued, though it was punctuated intermittently by the noise of hooves on the carpeted floor, which caused the room to shake ever so slightly with each tiny burst of sound.
Pinkie smiled as she continued her hopping, eyes closed in enjoyment of her revelry. Through second sight or serendipity, her bounces managed to avoid every shelf edge and pile of books just so. The first several near collisions had drawn a frantic hiss from Twilight through clenched teeth, but after several minutes of precipitous aggravation, the unicorn had opted to keep her attention elsewhere. Pinkie, for her part, had paid no heed to the obvious distress on Twilight's face everytime a stack of books narrowly avoided a tumble to the ground, and was still contentedly bounding around the main room of the library, humming a cheerful tune to herself as she did so.
Twilight closed her eyes for a moment as the last particles of errant dust settled from the closing of the volume on her desk. After a moment, she let out a soft sigh. the feeling of a presence behind prompted her eyes to open. She turned her head only half way to find a pair of wide blue eyes staring at her from inches away.
"Gaah!"
Twilight let out a shout and attempted to stumble backwards, but found her exit impeded by the great wooden desk now at her reverse. The furious motion of her legs sent her into an unavoidable collision, which contained a clear victor - with Twilight's balance robbed from her by the rapid halting of momentum, along with the sting of unyielding wood at high velocity, she tumbled to the ground, still being watched by Pinkie Pie.
"Pinkie!" Twilight's voice was pointed at the edge, momentarily sharpened by the tingling ache running along her body from the single point of soreness where she had met the desk. She rubbed a hoof along the impacted area, narrowing her eyes in an effort to will the sting away.
"Yes Twilight?" Pinkie said with an earneast, musical tone.
"Don't sneak up on me like that! You nearly gave me a heart attack..." Dusting herself off, Twilight rose from her impromptu sitting position, still glowering slightly.
"Sorry Twilight!" Pinkie's head bobbed in earnest apology, her eyes closing again as a smile broke across her face. "You just gave such a big sigh, I thought you might be sad, and you know I couldn't stand the thought of one of my bestest friends being sad!"
"I understand that," Twilight began, turning around with her gaze glowering at the ground "but why does that mean you have to scare the living daylights out of me?"
"You just seemed super wrapped up in your book a minute ago, so I wanted to make sure you could see me!"
Twilight sighed again. Pinkie Logic was difficult to refute, mostly because of its absurd simplicity. Rather than exhausting herself with a lengthy argument, Twilight decided it was better to let the matter slide - in any case, Pinkie was possessed of a supply of inexhaustible energy, and Twilight's capacity for debate would no doubt quickly find itself run dry in the face of Pinkie Pie's reasoning. She communicated this with another sigh, the ultimate nonverbal signature of defeat.
"What's the matter Twi? You seem down in the dumps all of a sudden. Was that book you were reading a real downer?"
"Not really Pinkie, no. In fact, it was quite thought provoking."
"So why did it make you sad?" Pinkie tilted her head sideways, eyes still beaming brightly even in the dimly lit library.
"It's a complicated subject, Pinkie. And I'm not sad... per say. I'm just..."
Twilight turned her gaze to the nearby window, looking through the worn glass at the evening scene outside. Fireflies tumbled haphazardly through the dark blanket of impending night, on their way to an inevitable firefly heaven, a destionation to which only they knew the way.
Another sigh. Twilight turned back around with sudden force.
"Have you ever thought about the scope of existence, Pinkie?"
Pinkie Pie narrowed one eye in perplexed confusion.
"Sort of, I guess. I mean, I exist, and other stuff exists, and I guess there's a lot of stuff... but isn't that a good thing?"
"Yes and no-"
Twilight stopped mid sentence as Pinkie raised a hoof in protest.
"Uh, Twilight. Answers are either yes or no. They can't be both, silly!"
The shattering of her impending pontification narrowed Twilight's eyes into a loathesome glare once again, but she quickly collected her composure and attempted to carry on.
"That's not really true though, Pinkie. Life is full of contradictions." Twilight cast a glance around the room, searching for an example to illustrate her point. Her eyes flashed as the lightbulb behind them flickered into life. "For example, Pinkie... would you say that cupcakes are great?"
Pinkie looked as though Twilight had questioned the existence of Equestria itself.
"Uh, duh! Of course they are. Cupcakes are amazing and awesome and super fantastically delicious!"
"Right," Twilight paused with a knowing nod before continuing. "Cupcakes are delicious, yes, and that makes them great in one sense. But what about for keeping healthy? If you ate nothing but cupcakes, you'd be pretty pudgy after a few weeks, right?"
"But I eat cupcakes all the time, and I'm not pudgy."
Twilight gave a small glance in the direction of Pinkie Pie's slightly wobbly belly, but stayed her tongue for the sake of the continued discussion.
"...Right. But you have a unique metabolism. NORMAL ponies who eat nothing but cupcakes usually aren't that healthy. Which means we can say that cupcakes are great because they're delicious, but they're NOT great because they make ponies pudgy and prevent pegasus from flight progress by progenating portliness."
Pinkie blinked.
"As an extension of this logic," Twilight continued to the empty stare of a bewildered Pinkie "we can further draw the conclusion that if I were to ask you 'Are cupcakes great?', you could answer both yes and no. Am I right?"
Pinkie scratched her head with one hoof thoughtfully as she pondered over Twilight's postulation, who for her part was grinning smugly in a matter-of-fact sort of way.
"I guess so... but what does that have to do with being sad? Or periscopes?"
"Periscopes?" Twilight's self-satisfaction was swiftly consumed by another oncoming tide of confusion.
"Yeah, you know. You mentioned it earlier. The periscope of existence? Are you sad because you have to go on a long trip underwater?"
"Ughh... the scope of existence, not periscope!" Twilight placed her head in her hooves with a belaboured groan.
"Right right right. So what about it?"
"Everything about it, Pinkie," Twilight wandered towards the window in what she hoped was an austere majesty of learned magnificence. Whether or not that was the case, Pinkie stared on with an intent fixation. Uncharacteristically, the pink pony waited patiently for Twilight to continue, instead of interupting.
"Have you ever sat and thought for a minute about just how big Equestria is? And not just Equestria... the whole world, with every country and pony and everything else inside."
"How big is that, compared to Ponyville?"
Twilight paused for a moment in the midst of some quick calculations and estimations.
"Really big. A thousand times bigger, at least... and there are still parts of the world that we might not know all about."
Pinkie's eyes beamed like a sky filled with stars as she envisioned the scope of the earth's far reaching shores.
"Wow," was all she could muster, drawing the vowel out as long as possible.
"Right. Like I was saying, really big. But think about this - that's just the earth RIGHT NOW. What about the Earth twenty years from now, or a century ago? Different ponies and creatures and countries were around before us, and different ones will be around after us, for as long as the earth is still here, and as long as it has been here."
"Do you mean that the earth has been changing size?"
"No, Pinkie. I mean that the scope of existence is bigger than the size of the earth - it's the size of everything that ever has existed or ever will. When we're talking about 'existence' it's much larger than just what exists now; it's practically infinite. All encompassing. Really big."
"I still don't get it; what does all of this have to do with you being sad?" Pinkie's voice peaked in to her higher register as an emphasis of her obvious befuddlement. Twilight mimicked her friends demeanour in spirit, but amplified the simple confusion into a permeating frustration.
"It has everything to do with me being sad! Which... I mean, I wasn't sad, I don't think. I'm not sure. I'm just... despondent."
Pinkie tilted her head again, perplexed. Twilight groaned an fished for a suitable synonym.
"I mean... fatigued. Weary. Filled with existential malaise."
"Huh?" Pinkie's eyebrows furrowed at the sprinkling of foreign vernacular.
"I'm upset because in the huge grand scope of all of existence, a pony like me is nothing more than an insignificant speck! A nothing! A nobody! I could be the greatest and most powerful unicorn in all of Equestria, but in a thousand years I'd be a name in an ancient book that nopony would ever read. Just like Star Swirl the Bearded or a hundred other ponies no one remembers."
"You're sad because no one will remember-"
Pinkie's inquiry faltered mid-syllable with the strength of Twilight's interupting outburst.
"No! I mean... yes, sort of. But it's more than that! Right now, at this very second, I don't matter. I'm a grain of sand in the giant desert of existence."
A moment of silence passed between the two, sprinkled with the outside ambience of crickets and the gentle evening breeze.
"Twilight," Pinkie finally began after an uncomfortable pause "why does it MATTER if you matter? Isn't being happy and having friends enough?"
Twilight shook her head despairingly with her eyes cast to the ground.
"I didn't expect you to understand, Pinkie. This is something bigger than just having fun; it's about purpose. The meaning of life! How can I be happy when everything I do is ultimately pointless?"
The conversation in Twilight's mind had fared no better when she considered broaching the subject to her friend. Even the circumstance of Pinkie's visit had been a foreboding indication of the futility of any kind of debate. Pinkie had come bounding through the door unnanounced and informed Twilight that the two were going to spend the night in each others's company. Twilight had protested, clinging to her ever present excuse that she had reading to be done, but Pinkie had remained undaunted, saying she would be content to amuse herself until Twilight's reading was finished. That had gotten them this far - and now Twilight was at a loss as to how she could explain the concept of existential puposelessness to a friend who's primary concerned seldom ventured beyond the domain of 'what type of cupcakes should I make today?'
Admittedly, Twilight hadn't imagined that a visit from Pinkie would lead to an admittance of the nagging despondence that had lingered at the back of her mind for the last few days. Now that she was in the midst of the topic, she felt a mix of misery a shame. Was it prudent to send herself into a spiral of emotional crisis over something as abstract as the purpose of existence? Maybe not - but now that the idea was in her mind, she found it difficult to extricate.
Twilight shook her head in summation.
"Just forget it Pinkie. I didn't expect you to understand."
Half-way through a dejected slink to the back of the room, her eyes planted firmly on the ground in despondence, Twilight found her path blocked by a bright pink body. She raised her head to meet Pinkie's face, only to find herself staring into the most emphatically furious set of eyes she had ever seen.
"No, Twilight, I think it's YOU who doesn't understand."
Twilight felt herself shake ever so slightly at the force of Pinkie's voice. She stumbled backwards, followed quickly by her friend.
"Pinkie-" she began nervously, only to find the words to follow fade away on the tip of her tongue, quelled into silence by Pinkie's insistent glare.
"The point of being isn't even close to what you think it is Twilight. I don't say that because I know, I say it because you can't NOT know. In all of Equestria, in all the world, a lifetime of being and existing and living life teaches you without even trying what the meaning of life is, and being remembered is not it."
Pinkie paused, turning her glare down to medium now that Twilight was silenced, sitting on her hind legs in a combination between fear and startled reverence. She wasn’t used to hearing Pinkie speak in this manner, or in fact anything aside from her usual light-hearted bubbliness. Pinkie continued almost as though she was possessed with the force of her conviction.
"You know as much as anypony else, probably better than anypony else, Twilight, that what we do in life is something we make for ourselves. It's a cause that we define, something that changes from pony to pony but is ultimately reduced to the same thing. You can be as upset as you want at the silly idea you've got in your head that 'mattering' is what life is all about, but that's a purpose you've come up with on your own, and it's completely opposite from everything living life up to this point has taught you."
"The thing about life is that, past any exaggeration, it's a miracle. All excitement and overemphasis aside, the fact that we are here, on this earth, living and breathing and existing and giving purpose to our own actions, is nothing short of miraculous. It doesn't mean you have to respect it. It doesn't mean you have to spend every day in reverence or contemplation, but it DOES mean you shouldn't think for one second that anything an insignificant as a lack of that same reverance applied to you is something worth crying over."
“Whether or not you find joy or happiness in life doesn't matter - you could be the most bitter unhappy pony in the whole world, but even in that misery and sadness you'll still know, deep in your heart that the only reason to find sustenance in your fascination with any kind of worship or posthumous respect is because you don't understand how life works."
"Ponies die. They grow old and pass on, some in a sublime beauty of a life well lived and others in tragedy. It's horrible, but it's also the way life works. And the idea that any amount of respect, real or feigned, might somehow affect that quality of life while it was lived is nonense. No pony should lie on their death bed wishing that after they go, somepony the next day will remember them fondly. Touching the lives of others is one of the blessings of our influence on our own lives, but the only thing to impact how you feel about yourself, your existence, and the emotion collected in your heart at the end of the day, or your very last day, is the effect you've had on YOUR life. How your actions impact YOU. How you approach life, how you contemplate existence, and the actions you've taken that affect that existence. Nothing after that is material, and spending time worrying about the imaginary ramifications of a live lived or not lived to its fullest extent in the realm of public worship is the worst thing you could possibly do in an attempt to give purpose to your life."
"And, thinking for a second that finding meaning in the purest and simplest moments of life is 'not getting it' means you need to take a minute and seriously think about how satisfied your life is making you, instead of worrying about what some unimportant pony is going to think about you after you're gone. Meaning is what you make of it, and I can't think of anything more meaningful than enjoying the life I've been given, whether that means with my friends or by myself. THAT'S what matters."
A stunned silence settled in the library, quiet enough that the specks of dust hanging in the air seemed to whoosh with the force of their descent downward. Pinkie's eyes seemed to shift out of focus for a moment as the last word passed her lips, the final expulsion of her torrent of philosophy taking with it the focused trance state that had overtaken her for a moment. The harsh sheen of her insistent glare vanished, and was replaced almost instantly with her usual bright cheerfulness.
Twilight became acutely aware of the volume of her own breathing, passing in and out of her lungs in steady breaths. She also noticed the small stream of tears trickling down the side of her face. Her breath caught as most of it was knocked out of her lungs with the force of Pinkie's hug, legs wrapping around her body in a warm embrace. Twilight let her head rest on Pinkie's body, the tiny drip of tears disappearing in the pink fur.
"I'm sorry Twilight. I don't know what came over me... I didn't mean to upset you-"
Pinkie's apology was halted mid-syllable by Twilight's hoof at her mouth. Pinkie's eyes crossed in the center to gaze singularly at the appendage halting her speech.
"It's fine, Pinkie. I'm the one who should be sorry..." Twilight's words faltered, and she contented herself with returning Pinkie's embrace. The two ponies shared several minutes together in relative silence. It was Pinkie who pulled away first, pausing to wipe the last traces of moisture from Twilight's cheek. Twilight smiled lightly in response.
"Would you like me to leave, Twilight?"
An eon of contemplation passed in a single moment, the collective of Twilight's ruminations and feelings swirling together as she thought. She opened her mouth to begin a sentence, then paused for a moment, before trying again.
"I'd love for you to stay, Pinkie."
Pinkie beamed brightly, and Twilight returned the gesture.
"I was thinking, maybe we could make cupcakes?"
Pinkie smiled even wider.
