Mae'r Adenydd Caledfwlch

~Mae'r Adenydd Caledfwlch~

Chapter Two: The Truth - Part Two

"... and then he was all, 'angst-angst, anger, groan, BLECH' like usual," the draconnequus sighed, leaning against the outer wall of the castle. "He's absolutely no fun at all. I'm surprised the six of you can even stand that insufferable buffoon."

"Pretty much the same way we 'stand' you, Discord," Rainbow Dash deadpanned, rubbing her temples with her hooves. "So where did you say he went again? In less words and, you know, complaints this time, please?"

"Those were most certainly not complaints, Rainbow. They were merely my astute observations regarding your irritable little orange friend, if you even still think of him as such," he shrugged. "I mean, that explosion of his regarding your fair Princess Celestia would have been punishable by 1000-plus years' imprisonment, back in my day," he muttered bitterly.

"Discord!" scolded Fluttershy, frowning. "Of course he's still our friend. Just like you are, and hopefully always will be."

Discord scoffed and turned his head away from Fluttershy, hiding his slight blush. "Oh, spare me with the lovey-dovey friendship talk, I get it." He sighed again, and turned his mismatched body towards Twilight. "Should I go out and find him again? Maybe bring him back this time?"

"No, I don't think that would be the best idea," she replied, shaking her head. "He hasn't exactly rolled out the welcome wagon for you yet, and knowing him, he probably never will. We should just go back to hunting him down without your help. Thank you for trying, though," she concluded, offering Discord a smile.

"Suit yourselves," he responded, shrugging and cracking his back. He snapped a claw and a pair of sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt materialized on his person. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go back to my vacation."

"Vacation?" Rainbow asked, eyebrow raised. "We found you hanging off the ceiling like a bat in Twilight's old room, rearranging all of her books by 'How Much You Liked Them,' which for some reason isn't a real organization method. How does that count as a 'vacation?'"

"Shut up, that's how," was Discord's simple reply. He snapped his claw again and vanished in a flash of white light.

"He's always such a diamond mine of information, isn't he?" Rarity commented, rolling her eyes.

Applejack looked at Rarity, a confused expression on her face. "I thought th' phrase was 'gold mine' o' information, not 'diamond mine.' I mean, I know yer a big fan o' diamonds an' all, but I've just never heard that 'fore."

"Eheh, sorry, that's become a favorite phrase of Sweetie Belle's as of late. In fact, she's been talking very highly of mining in general, lately. I'm not quite sure why."

"Okay, girls, maybe we can save discussing Rarity's sister's sudden fascination with the mining industry for some other time?" Twilight suggested, interrupting the conversation before it got out of hoof. "We do have a certain orange bird-pony to find, after all."

"Yeah, yeah, I got'cha, Twi'."

"Quite right you are, Twilight."

"Um, girls?" Fluttershy asked, looking around the room. "D-Did anypony see where Pinkie Pie ran off to?"

The four other mares, suddenly acknowledging the absence of their sixth party member, looked around in confusion.

Rainbow Dash groaned and smacked herself in the face with a hoof. "She was here just a minute ago! You know, probably! Where could she have possibly gone in the whole two seconds she must have had to leave!?"

"Maybe she went to go find Dave," Fluttershy offered quietly, scuffing the floor a little with her hoof.

"Why would she bother going off on her own to do that? None of us know where he went off to," Dash replied, furrowing her brow in thought.

A metaphorical light bulb flickered and then went off in Twilight's head. "Or... maybe she does know. I have an idea. Follow me, girls!" Twilight exclaimed, running out the door, leaving her friends confused.

----

An orange hoof kicked a ripple in the pond water as its owner sighed. He stared at his reflection again for a few moments and shook his head. "God, I look ridiculous," he stated, rubbing his face with the aforementioned appendage. "With these massive eyes and these disproportionate wings, and this dumb horse muzzle."

"I don't think you look ridiculous," a bright voice responded happily.

"Oh, there you are, Jade," Davesprite sighed, kicking his reflection in the water again. "I was wondering when you'd show up. Rose and Dave have already given me the business, as you should very well know already. You think it's weird that I keep talking to you guys, even though you're all just fucking voices inside my head?"

"No, not really. Though, that's mostly because I like to talk to the voices in my head, too! They usually don't 'give me the business,' though! That probably means you're being too hard on yourself, silly!"

Davesprite sighed again and turned to see Pinkie Pie standing exactly where the voice had just been coming from. "Hey," he greeted weakly, putting on a small smile. "Didn't see you there."

"Obviously!" Pinkie said, laughing. "So who's Jade, anyway? I know you're Dave, and your sister is Rose, but I don't think I've heard that name yet."

"I'm not... oh, whatever. Jade was the girl I mentioned earlier," Davesprite replied, turning his head back to the still water. "The one I was in love with."

"Oh, right. So, um... Davey?" Pinkie asked tentatively, walking up beside him and sitting on her haunches. "Why is it that you keep saying that you aren't 'The Real Dave?' I mean, of course you're real! I couldn't be talking to you right now if you weren't!"

He kicked the water again, sending a ripple across the surface. "You can talk to me because I exist. Not because I'm real. There's a pretty sizable difference between those two concepts. I mean, hell, I know for a fact that the voices in my head aren't real, but I talk to them anyway. I can do that because they exist within my mind."

"That seems like a sad way to look at things," Pinkie replied, watching the tiny waves spread out from their point of origin. "Why can't you exist and be real? I think I'd like that a lot more. You would too, I bet."

"Yeah, I probably would. Too bad life doesn't work like that."

"Well... why not? I mean, well...," Pinkie stopped and rubbed her chin with a hoof. "Okay, hang on, Davey. Answer this question for me. What makes the other Dave real that you, apparently, don't have?"

Davesprite kicked the water again, harder this time. "His lack of wings and tail. His not-orange skin. His stupid fucking cape. All of that, and more."

Pinkie raised an eyebrow at her friend. "Wait, so what you're saying is that, and stop me if I'm wrong here, the other Dave is more real than you because of how he looks?"

Davesprite slammed his hoof in the pond, splashing water on both himself and the pink mare. "No! Yes! I... I don't know! Maybe that is it! He doesn't look like some sort of mutant freak, so he's the real deal! Wow, looks like we solved a fucking mystery and a half right there, didn't we?!" he snapped, whipping his head around towards Pinkie, nostrils flared.

She didn't even flinch. "So you feel like... you're a reflection of Dave. And that nobody wants you. Because all they want is the 'real you' back?"

He spun slowly back to the water and looked again at the distorted picture.

"I think I know how you feel," she continued, walking up right beside him and staring into the pool.

Davesprite scoffed. "Yeah, right. Pulled that line right out of the Big Book of Clichés, didn't you?"

Pinkie shook her head rapidly in response. "No, no, no! I really mean it! I mean it and I do know how you feel because I was in your exact situation, once!"

The orange pegastallicrowst chuckled mirthlessly, much to Pinkie's chagrin. "I doubt it. There's only one Pinkie Pie."

"... Except for that time I messed around with The Mirror Pool," she stated simply.

Davesprite, attention piqued, glanced at the pink mare beside him. "Mirror Pool?" he asked, looking back at the pond before them. "What's that supposed to be?"

"Well, it was a legend. I guess it isn't really anymore, since it was true. Can legends be true? I don't know, but that's not the important thing here. Anyway, the legend said that there was this pool, right? And, and, if you recited this special poem and walked into the water, you could make copies of yourself! Or, I guess. reflections of yourself! See, the name makes sense, right?"

"I guess," Davesprite replied halfheartedly. He didn't really get where this little storytime session was going.

"So basically, I decided to make copies, or, er, one copy, of myself because I really wanted to hang out with all of my friends so we could all have fun at the same time and I wouldn't have to choose between any of them! I mean, it almost kinda worked out at first, but then the copy I made said she couldn't choose either, so we went back to make two more copies, one for each of us! Cool, right? Four Pinkies! Almost enough to cover all of my friends! But er... the other three decided they wanted to make even more copies. That's where the real problem started," Pinkie continued, unfazed by Davesprite's less-than-enthusiastic tone.

"There's that word again," he muttered quietly.

"The mirror Pinkies were all like, reflections of reflections, so you know, it's like when you have clones of clones! They're not exactly... right. They all wanted to have fun, sure! But that's, well, all they wanted. They didn't care who got in their way or if anyone else got put in a bind, because they were all having such a great time... ruining Ponyville, basically," she explained sheepishly. "And so nopony wanted to talk to any of the Pinkies because they were all being super irritating, and so there I was, all alone and sad. See, all I really want in my life is to make other ponies happy. But I can't do that when nopony even wants to be around me, you know?"

Davesprite blinked. "Um. I guess?"

"Anyway, so eventually I came up with an idea while I was being all sad and mopey about not being with my friends. The idea? Give the Pinkies a test! A test that would be really hard for Pinkie Pie to do! Whoever failed got sent back to the Mirror Pool! That way, only the Pinkie who wanted to stay with her friends badly enough would be left, and that would mean that she was the real Pinkie Pie!"

Realization dawned on the orange male's face.

"So let me ask you, Davey," Pinkie stated seriously, turning to face her companion. "If you had the chance to go back, would you still save your friends, or would you stay with your sister?"

He thought for a moment, then sighed. "I would... I would still save them. I would know that my period of usefulness was long gone, but they would still be able to go on and fulfill their great and mighty destinies, or whatever."

"So?"

"So what?"

"Oh, come on!" Pinkie exclaimed. "Think about it for like, ONE second! You would do anything for your friends, even if it's something that's really hard for you! You should already know what that means!"

cmon man, put two and two together already before she starts literally spelling it out to you

"Davey! Come on! Tell me what it means! You know what it is!" she continued, her cries almost turning into pleas.

youre gonna make her cry, asshat

The orange pegasus lifted a hoof and looked at it for a while, because apparently it was the most intriguing thing in the world to him, at the moment. "What it means? Well, if your line of thinking and the nagging voice inside my head are on the same page, then you seem to be implying that the truth of the matter is that..." he paused. "Is that those feelings make me just as real as any other Dave," he finished.

"Exactly!" Pinkie shouted, grinning happily at Davesprite. "Finally, you reali--"

"But I'm not buying it."

are you fucking *serious***

"You're... not buying it? Not buying what? There aren't even any shops nearby."

He shook his head in reply. "No, Pinkie. Thing is, there's a difference between our stories. Y'see, if my story went like that, then I wouldn't be the Pinkie who won. I'd be one of the fakes shot back into the Pool. That's just how it is."

**you* dont even believe you anymore! why are you so intent on keeping up this stupid self pity act!?*

"Ugh! That wasn't even the point!" Pinkie shouted, gritting her teeth at Davesprite. He had to admit, she could almost be considered something akin to terrifying if she wanted to be. "You were supposed to realize that you're real because your feelings are real! You aren't just some static emotionless force, or anything like that! You are a living, breathing pony with a heart and you feel happiness and love and sadness and anger! That's what makes you real! And having wings doesn't make you any less real!"

Davesprite stood in stunned silence for a matter of seconds, then shook his head rapidly. "I don't..."

oh my god, *shut the hell up***

"... if I'm so real, then why don't they care?"

"The only one who cares about your stupid definition of what makes something 'real' is you!" Pinkie shot back, obviously done with the giggles and sunshine for now. "Why can't you just get it through your head that you're just as real as any of us, and that you have people who care about you!? Why is that so hard for you to understand? And I swear, if you give me some stupid, fakey-lakey sarcastic answer, I'm gonna... do something! Something... I don't know!"

The other pony really had nothing to say for a while. He stared into the wide, shiny blue eyes of the pink pony behind his dark sunglasses. He sighed in defeat. "Fine. Fine, okay? I have real emotions. I have real friends. I'm real. But you know what? You know why I keep saying I'm not? Because it's never really been about me being real. It's been about me being the real Dave. That's why I can't stand this. Because no matter what I do or how I do it, I'm going to forever be the real Davesprite. Not the real Dave. And god, do I miss being Dave. I miss being me."

Pinkie's expression had returned to one of sympathy. "I'm sorry."

"I know. You shouldn't be, though. It's not your problem. It's mine."

"But I really, truly am."

"Yeah. It... we should go back. We did come here for a reason, and who the hell am I to screw this whole thing up for everyone else?"

----

"Pinkie! Dave!" Twilight called off happily as the two came into view around a corner.

Pinkie returned Twilight's wave enthusiastically while Davesprite continued to wear a somber, sullen expression. Twilight looked back and saw mixed expressions on the rest of her friends' faces. She sighed.

"Guys," Davesprite began suddenly, calling all attention to himself. "I know this isn't even remotely enough to make up for how I snapped at you earlier, not to mention your friggin' monarch, for god's sake, but I'm so fucking sorry right now that I just... don't know what else to say. I'm just... sorry."

"Well, I'm glad to see somepony's learned to control himself. And you even noticed I broke your little language barrier, too. You catch on quick, my little pony."

The six mares and Davesprite looked over in shock as Celestia seemed to emerge from behind a solid wall, smiling warmly at the group. "And just so you know, Dave: I forgive you with all of my heart. I understand that I brought up a sore subject, and I deeply apologize as well."

Davesprite's mouth hung open in apparent shock.

"Now come, you seven. I have something to show you."