When Pinkie Pie woke up, Gummy was gone.
Mrs. Cake winced at the panicked mutterings that she could hear rising from her niece’s room. She had been expecting this for a while now, and as much as she hated hearing a loved one on the verge of a total breakdown, she couldn’t help but hope that it signified Pinkie’s denial finally receding.
“Pinkie Pie?” Cup Cake called up the stairs, “Are you alright?”
The thundering of hoof steps echoing down the stairs was the only warning Mrs. Cake had to get out of the way. She jumped back just in time for a very freaked out Pinkie to skid onto the bottom floor, the two only just barely avoiding a collision. Mrs. Cake’s hope faded to confusion as she watched Pinkie dart around the bakery as if she was searching desperately for something.
“Pinkie Pie? What are you looking for?” She asked, her confusion evident in her voice.
“Gummy!”
“What-?”
“Gummy! My alligator?! I can’t find him anywhere! At first I was really happy because I thought that maybe he was feeling better and went to get something to munch on because you know how he hasn’t been eating at all lately so he must be really really hungry but I can’t find him anywhere!” Pinkie stopped to gasp briefly for air, and to brush tears, both old and new off her cheeks, “I’ve looked all over my room and the bathroom, and my little kitchen upstairs but he’s not there anywhere so now I’m scared that maybe I scared him and he’s hiding from me and I don’t want one of my bestest best friends to be scared of me but I can’t make it right because I can’t find hi-i-i-m!” The last word was drawn out into a sob as the little bit of composure Pinkie Pie had, began to break.
It was all Mrs. Cake could do to hide the relief on her face. “Oh, my goodness I’m so sorry to hear that Pinkie-“
“No you’re not!”
Mrs. Cake was taken back. Pinkie, PINKIE, of all ponies, had just snapped at her.
“You’re not sorry at all, are you?” Pinkie continued, as tears continued to fall, “You’ve been absolutely horrible to him this past weeks! I bet you’re glad he’s gone!”
Cup Cake knew better than to reply, and instead closed her eyes in a sigh. Pinkie was right, of course, but not for the reasons she thought.
“Perhaps one of your friends knows where is?” She offered, and Pinkie seemed to calm down a bit as she thought about it.
Now, it probably wasn’t the nicest thing to pass the buck onto the girls, but as it was most likely one of them that had found the solution, they were also the most likely to have a proper answer for the young mare. In fact, for all she knew, trying to make Pinkie face the truth again might only ruin what they were trying to accomplish.
“Y-yeah, maybe Fluttershy knows where Gummy is, she’s kinda like a vet too r-right? Or maybe Dashie’s seen him, since she flies around s-so much. I’ll go ask th-them,” Pinkie hiccupped quietly as the struggled to calm herself down.
As she stepped through the door, Pinkie paused for a second to look back at her Aunt. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“It’s alright Pinkie, I understand.”
The two exchanged a small, fragile smile, before she disappeared through the door, leaving Mrs. Cake to her bakery, and with the knowledge that today Pinkie might finally be able to move on.
“GIRRRLS!”
Twilight looked up from her book to see a familiar pink figure running towards the spot where the three of them were lounging. Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Twilight had set up a small book club of sorts, and the three would meet under the Golden Oak’s Library tree whenever another Daring Do book came out. As one had just been released the night before, it was only common sense that the three would be enjoying the tales of Silk Quill together today.
“…Pinkie…”
Rainbow Dash looked up from her book as well to see Pinkie come stumbling to a stop in front of them, and also to catch the guilty look of anxiety on Twilight’s face. Her eyes darted back up to Pinkie, who had clearly been crying this morning as well. With a surprisingly gentle motion, Rainbow closed her book and set it down, before getting to her hooves and walking over to her friend’s side.
“Woah, Pinkie, what happened?”
“Oh Dashie, I can’t find Gummy! Not anywhere!” Pinkie gulped out, grateful to have her friend’s arm around her shoulders.
“You can’t find him?” Twilight repeated, her disbelief obvious.
The unicorn winced slightly as Pinkie glared at her for a second, before dropping her eyes back to the ground with a nod. “I’ve looked everywhere, too. All his favourite spots, all the good gator-hiding-places, I even checked the lake in case he was feeling really super better and went swimming!”
“Well, that explains why you’re soaked…” Rainbow muttered, wrapping a wing around her Pinkie in an attempt to warm the shivering pony up.
“Pinkie, how could Gummy go anywhe-“ Twilight snapped her mouth shut at the look that Rainbow was shooting her over Pinkie’s head. There was one word evident in that glare; “Don’t.”
“Anywhere without me, right?” Pinkie asked, in an attempt to finish Twilight’s question. Without moving her gaze from Rainbow Dash, the unicorn gave her an awkward smile and a small nod in response.
“I know, it’s not like him… He’d never leave me. Never… I don’t know where he would have gone without me…”
Pinkie looked up in confusion as Dash pulled her gently aside, walking her out of the shade and into the warm sun.
“I know where he went.”
Pinkie’s eyes lit up with hope as what Rainbow Dash said sunk in.
“You do?! Really?!”
“Yep! I seen him going on his way last night. Know exactly where he’s headed too, that’s why you came looking for me right? Eyes in the sky and all that?”
“Exactly why! Omigosh Dashie, if you know where he went, I can go find him again!” Pinkie squealed, pulling the pegasus into a hug.
“Actually, I don’t think you should go find him, Pinkie…” Dash said softly, as she ran a hoof through her friend’s curly mane.
Pinkie’s head snapped up to look at Rainbow Dash with a look of betrayed confusion. “W-why not? Where did he go?”
“Well, he went on an adventure. A really super special adventure to a place where he wouldn’t feel sick anymore…”
Pinkie’s brow furrowed as she thought about what was being said.
“So w-why can’t I go with him?” She asked carefully, feeling the lump in her throat return as she swallowed.
“We will all go with him eventually, Pinks, but… Now isn’t the time. For now, he has to go on his own. You may have gotten Gummy when he was just a little baby, but that was a really long time ago. He’s a big gator now, right?”
“I guess we all have adventures we have to face on our own, huh?” Pinkie asked softly, “D-do you think he’ll come back?”
Tears threatened to come to Rainbow’s eyes as well as her voice cracked slightly, “I don’t think so, Pinks.”
Relief flooded Dash’s face as Pinkie nodded, a small smile finding its way through the tears. “I understand… I just… I just wished he’d told me or something. Then I could have thrown him a goodbye party.”
“We could still do that, you know.”
“Huh?” Pinkie’s eyes snapped up to meet Rainbow Dash’s smiling eyes.
“What you just said, throw him a goodbye party! Just because he’s already left doesn’t mean we can’t send him off with good wishes now. Ponies do that all the time.”
“Do you think they’d still reach him?” Pinkie asked, as Twilight walked up to stand beside her as well.
“If it’s one of your parties, Pinkie,” Twilight said, as she placed a hoof on her shoulder, “I know they will.”
As Pinkie Pie bounced off to gather the party supplies, Twilight and Rainbow Dash returned to the blanket underneath the tree. Once the two of them had got comfortable again, Fluttershy decided to ask the one question that had been on her mind the whole time.
“So, where did Gummy go?”
When her friend’s turned to look at her with the most exasperated look of disbelief, Fluttershy rolled her eyes and sighed, “I mean where did he actually go?”
Rainbow smiled sadly as her eyes dropped to the Daring Do figure on her book.
“I buried him by the river that Pinkie always played by. I’ve seen her with him there when I’ve gone to set up pranks, so I figured it would be as good a spot as any.”
“You took him?” Twilight asked, astounded.
“Well yeah, who else was going to do it?” Rainbow Dash deadpanned, “It’s not like Rarity or Flutters here would have the stomach for it, and subtlety isn’t exactly Applejacks’ strong suit. Or yours, for that matter.”
Twilight grimaced, but she didn’t say anything to disagree with her friend’s deduction.
Fluttershy shuffled her wings in a clear expression of discomfort at the whole idea. When her fidgeting gathered the other two’s attention and questioning looks, she sighed.
“I know that it had to be done, and all… I mean, Gummy’s been dead for nearly three weeks now, and her refusal to even see that was unhealthy in more ways than one… but somehow the idea of taking him without Pinkie knowing doesn’t really… Sit well with me.”
Twilight nodded slowly, “I know what you mean, the idea of lying to her like this…”
“It’s not lying,” Dash protested, “it’s softening the truth into something she can understand and cope with.”
“We’re treating her like a child! She’s still not facing the truth, not really…” Twilight muttered.
“Yeah well we wouldn’t have been in this mess if you hadn’t made her think he was still alive at the picnic!”
Twilight winced as Rainbow’s voice grew louder. The pegasus had been furious about that whole situation, especially after Twilight’s attempt to confront Pinkie with the truth about it. Rather than having Pinkie understand, it had ended instead with the two of them getting into a very loud fight with hurt feelings on both sides.
“I’m sorry! But, she was freaking out so bad, and hyperventilating, and crying- and I just couldn’t bear to see her like that when we’d all gone out to just have some fun…” Twilight said softly, her own voice cracking a little.
Rainbow Dash sighed. “And you think I could? I hated it just as much as you did, but it happens sometimes. Death doesn’t really care what you’re doing, or with who, when it’s time, it’s time. It sucks, and it’s horrible, but… I knew it was going to happen sooner or later, Gummy’d been really sick for almost a month at that point. I only gave in and let Pinkie bring him because I couldn’t bear to think about what she’d be like if he died while she was gone and she thought she’d abandoned him or something.”
Silence fell between them for a long minute. When Rainbow Dash finally broke it, it was with a small smile and a soft voice.
“And it wasn’t without her knowledge that I took Gummy… Not really.”
Rainbow Dash was hovering just outside Sugarcube Corner, her eyes locked on the top floor’s window. As always, Pinkie Pie had left her bedroom window open to let the summer air in. Rainbow swallowed, trying to ease the feeling in her stomach. She didn’t like what she was about to do, but she knew that it would be easier on everypony if she did it. Pinkie had been carrying around Gummy’s corpse for over two weeks now, with the insistence that he was still alive. Rather frankly, Rainbow didn’t know how she hadn’t noticed the smell that had begun to cling to the small alligator and everything it touched. Denial was a powerful thing, she supposed.
Steeling her resolve, Dash carefully flew up and through the window, landing silently on her friend’s bedroom floor. Keeping her wings tightly folded at her sides to avoid knocking anything over, Dash crept around to the side of Pinkie’s bed. Her ears folded back as they caught the sound of a sob, and then another, as Rainbow realized that Pinkie was crying in her sleep. The fur on Pinkie’s cheeks was matted, and her mane had fallen out of its tight curls. More than anything, Rainbow wanted to wake her up from whatever she was dreaming, and give her a hug, to tell her it would all be okay again. Dash’s stomach turned slightly as she spotted Gummy, his dead body held close to her friend’s pink fur, as if she was trying to bring warmth to it again.
First things first… RD knew that Pinkie had a teddy bear somewhere, she had seen it last month while planning a prank for Cloud Kicker. She just had to figure out where it had gone. Her eyes scanned the dark room for the white velvet of the plushy, before ducking to look under the bed. Sure enough, there it was. She cautiously fished it out, taking care not to bump the bed, and was soon holding it in her hooves. Now for the hard part.
It was like something out of one of her Daring Do novels- The novels may have been what inspired this strange scheme in the first place. She just had to switch out the bear and the gator without waking her friend up. Then Gummy could have a proper burial, and maybe, just maybe, Pinkie could move on. If she failed, well, she’d have a very angry Pinkie on her hands, who could very easily fall even deeper into her denial. Dash didn’t want to think about what would happen when the gator inevitably started rotting.
Yeah. No pressure. Dash grimaced internally. Taking a deep breath, Dash reached over, placed her hoof on the gator, carefully secured a grasp as she readied the teddy in her other hoof, and-
A second later, she was holding the cold figure of what was once Pinkie’s pet, and Pinkie had her hooves carefully wrapped around the velvet teddy. A small sigh of relief left Dash’s lips, and she slowly turned back to the window to leave.
The sound of bedsprings creaking froze her in her steps. Should she make a run for it? Should she hold her breath and hope the darkness hid her? She didn’t know... So she turned around instead. Pinkie’s brow was furrowed as her eyes blinked open. Dash’s stomach sank as her friend woke up, the feel of the bear perhaps too foreign to be right. The few curls that had remained fell straight as her friend sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Blue eyes settled first in confusion upon the bear, and then upon the frozen figure of Dash, still holding Gummy in her hooves. Then, as they widened in realization at what was being seen, much to Dash’s confusion, a look of relief and understanding seemed to pass across her face.
“Thank you,” Pinkamena whispered, smiling despite the tears that were still rolling down her cheeks.
“Heh. No problem," Dash whispered back, a reply every bit as sincere as a small smile of her own appeared.
She watched quietly as the pillows were fluffed, and the teddy bear tucked under arm, before Pinkie faded back off to sleep, one that looked to be more peaceful than the last. Dash turned and stepped silently onto the windowsill, before unfolding her wings, and taking off into the night. A quiet rest was waiting for one more soul down by the river.
