Pinkie Pie’s parties are awesome. Who doesn’t love a good bash with balloons, punch, and cake? Nopony, that’s who. Pinkie Pie herself was the most enthusiastic pony around when it came to parties, and planned one for every occasion.
But then her parties changed. Ponies seemed to be telling the host of the parties that they only needed to use the restroom, and when they came back out, they seemed brain-dead and the room smelled funny.
And that’s not all. Usually, ponies at Pinkie’s bashes would be happy, upbeat, energetic. Now they seemed to be no more than delinquents and drunks, swearing and drinking and sniffing something.
And Pinkie, in the midst of all this. What did she think? On one hoof, she always did her best to avoid parties like that. On the other hoof, sometimes, the parties seemed to get wild after some ponies came in and distributed their goods. Pinkie had tried to tell Twilight on multiple occasions, but something kept stopping her. Something…
And then it was too late.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
The music blared. DJ-P0N3 had been away with her cellist friend, so they had to get a new DJ for the night. This guy, DJ-N0153 as he called himself, didn’t put his heart into his songs like Vinyl had. It was more of one continuous loop, with a few warbles and drops here and there, and not nearly as dancy as Vinyl’s mixes.
“Woops! Pardon me! Ooh, sorry! Was that your tail? My bad!” Pinkie stumbled through the throng of ponies, most of them being young. Too young. Still, she pushed through to the newest arrivals to the party.
“Sniff! Heroine! Scotch! How’s it going?” She asked. Powder Sniff, Heroine Rush, and Hard Scotch were three of Pinkie’s most frequent guests nowadays.
“S’all good, pink one!” Said Scotch, slurring as he laughed. He’d been drinking again, Pinkie could smell the booze on him. She brushed it off, because he could stop whenever he wanted. She knew it.
“Cool, guys! Well, see you on the dance floor!” She walked away to stop some stallions from spiking the punch. She got them away before too much had gotten into the drink, so she hoped it would be okay.
These were the parties that Pinkie often found herself throwing. It hadn’t meant to be like this, all she wanted was to open her partying doors to the younger crowd. One thing led to another, and a few ponies started showing up, giving something to the mares and stallions there, and then this happened every other night.
Sighing, Pinkie sat in a corner, sipping from her glass of punch that didn’t have alcohol in it. When she ran out and got more, she spit it out. It tasted terrible. But all the other guests enjoyed it, so to be polite, she sipped more and stomached it, drinking it until it was gone.
“Hey, man! Drop it! DROP IT NOW!” A scream ripped through the air. Jumping out of her chair, she dashed over to the commotion. Everypony around the scene seemed to be willing it forward, but Pinkie knew she had to stop it. Especially when she saw the knife floating in a familiar white glow, and the bits of shattered glass that reeked of whiskey.
“Sniff! Scotch! Leave this guy alone, he didn’t do anything!”
“He looked at me funny.” Sniff growled, advancing on the poor stallion on the ground before him. A gash in his arm was already visible.
“Yeah, stay out of it!” Heroine hissed. Pinkie’s mane deflated as the scene before her played out. She was not hosting a party of friends. Nopony here was her friend. They all were just.. just…
Empty. They were hardly ponies anymore, and she saw that now. No matter how hard she had tried, she couldn’t get past that fact that these ponies were nothing more than drug-addicts and alcoholics who had been looking for somewhere to go about their business freely. And she had provided them with just such a place.
“GET AWAY, YOU BIG MEANIES!” She jumped at Powder Sniff as his knife plunged downward, only to be blocked by a large body. Hard Scotch.
“We said stay out of it!!!” He proceeded to hit her with his bottle, one shattered in one wing’s grip, and another one whole in the other. And she only lay there and cried, listening to the cheers and laughter running through the crowd. Funny. Laughter was her element. Look how good of a job she had done. Everypony was laughing. She nailed it.
And slowly, the world faded out to black, and her mind was flooded with the haunting sounds of cries for help and cruel, cruel laughter.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
“...Ink…”
“....Pink…”
“P..nkie… P...e…”
Reality is all about perception. If something couldn’t be perceived, then was it real? Now Pinkie couldn’t see anything. She was in darkness. She was in despair. She was in death.
But was she? It doesn’t seem like she was dead. She could hear ponies, but there were faded and muffled, not audible in any way. Who was she? What was she doing here? She tried to piece together her life, bit by bit.
Ever so slightly, a bit of light seemed to shine. Was that a dash of lavender she saw? Or, wait, no. No, now it was… rainbows. Odd. No, wait, it was definitely pale yellow and pink. Oh, why wouldn’t everything make sense?
As her mind worked harder than she would have liked, the mare, whoever she was, fell back into the deep, deep, neverending darkness, letting it take over once more.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
She was on a farm. This seemed familiar somehow. Like… like it was home. Wait, no, it WAS home. She grew up here. Her name was… her name was… Pinkamena. Pinkamena Diane Pie. But didn’t everypony call her something else? A name, a word, a color, forms in her mind. Something to do with pink. Lots of it… Pinkie! That made sense!
Pinkie smiled as something clicked. She was home! She began to trot towards the house, calling out.
“Mom! Dad! Sisters! I’m home!” Her heart raced as she waltzed into the kitchen, only to find that there was a surprise in the kitchen. Another her. Smaller, younger, but definitely her. Her family was around the dinner table, and a cake sat in front of younger Pinkie. The rest of the family was singing.
“Oh, right!” Pinkie laughed. “That was the birthday after I invented the party! They all were so eager to try it out, and they didn’t do have bad.”
The family sang around their daughter, commending her for reaching 14 and already being offered an apprenticeship. The Cakes Bakery was to be her new home and job, and her family couldn’t be prouder, despite her leaving them for a long time.
A beeping was heard, suddenly, and Pinkie was drawn back into reality.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
“How is she?” Pinkie recognized Twilight’s voice. The beeping was more obvious now. She couldn’t see, but she knew this smell. This sound. This feeling.
The Ponyville hospital.
“She’s in stable condition.” Said the doctor. “But… she’s in a coma. We don’t know how long she’ll be in it.”
“Well, can’t we do something? I can’t… I can’t see my best friend like this!” Rainbow Dash’s voice rose above everypony elses, but it sounded as if she would cry any moment. She still couldn’t see.
“No, there’s nothing that can be done. There could be brain damage, or there could be a problem with her nerves. Either way, she’s going to be unconscious for a long while.
What are you talking about, sillies? I’m right here! I can’t see, but still… Pinkie tried to will her mouth to move and form the words, but she couldn’t. She simply couldn’t.
“Um, it seems her heart rate is going up. We don’t want her hurting herself, maybe you five should go. Come on back another time, all right?”
No! I don’t want them to leave, please don’t leave me like this… But the hoofsteps faded out, and she returned to the inky blackness.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
The first time anypony had offered Pinkie drugs was when she was waiting for her train in the Manehattan Station. He was a stallion in a long, dark coat, and he had shifty eyes. He slithered on up to the filly, and slyly smiled.
“Hey kid, wanna’ buy some cool stuff?” He whispered. The filly looked up, confused.
“What kinda’ stuff?” He grinned at that before flashing his coat open. Packets of white powder lined the fabric.
“Pick anything, first one’s free. I guarantee you’ll like it…”
“Hey you! Stop, in the name of the MPD!” Two police officer ran up to the stallion, who quivered with terror and tried to run for his dear life. One of the cops lifted something from his saddlebags.
It was a day of firsts for Pinkie. The first day she had been offered drugs. The first day she had seen somepony being chased by the authorities. And the first day that she had seen a pony get tazed.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
It had been three weeks now. Around her crowded Pinkie’s five closest friends. Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, and Applejack. All were crying, and Pinkie now knew why. They thought she would never wake up.
I wish I could let you guys know I was still here. She thought to herself. She still couldn’t open her eyes, but she had gotten her other senses heightened, and knew if they were there or not. The doctors were trying what they could, but nothing seemed to be able to bring Pinkie back from the darkness.
She would’ve liked that. To escape the darkness. It was so cold and unforgiving, like it stood there, waiting for her to finally slip and never return. The doctors had tried adrenaline surges, defibrillators, CAT scans, and none of those had worked. It was beginning to look hopeless.
All Pinkie could hope for was that her friends would stick with her till the end. She knew they would, I mean, without her, the Elements of Harmony wouldn’t work, right?
Right?
The darkness swarmed again, signaling it was time to go under. Sighing internally, Pinkie let the waves take her to long ago and far away.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Pinkie was happy. She had a good paying job, lots of friends, and all the cupcakes she could eat! She had met a really nice pegasus who seemed like “friend-material.” It was around this time that she usually threw a party to announce that she wants to be friends.
The Cakes’ guest room, now Pinkie’s, provided ample space for a party, so she had spent the day decorating her walls for the party. Finally, she was waiting at the door for Rainbow Dash.
A tentative knock sounded, and Pinkie threw the door open. There was Rainbow, surrounded by three other fillies. An alabaster unicorn with a purple mane, a pale-yellow filly with a pink mane, and an orange filly with a mop of blonde hair and a hat that was too big for her.
“Hey, Pinkie, right?” Rainbow stuck out a hoof, which Pinkie took. “When I was invited to this party, I grabbed a few other friends of mine. These are Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack. You don’t mind that I brought them, right?”
Pinkie stood on her doorstep in shock and silence, causing Rarity and Applejack to exchange a glance.
“Is she okay, sugarcube?” The farm girl asked her rainbow-maned friend. Suddenly, fireworks seemed to go off in Pinkie’s eyes.
“Oh boy! FOUR new friends? EVERYPONY COME INSIDE, NOW!” She screamed, darting into the house. Grinning, Rainbow Dash led her friends into the bakery.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Three years. Three years in this Celestia-forsaken dark. And nopony had been able to get the pink mare working again. Pinkie had banged on her mental walls for the last two and a half years, at least, but to no avail. She simply couldn’t give up. Her friends hadn’t.
She had worked her Pinkie Sense into her perception of the world around her. Her mane had grown unbelievably long, and she could tell. She could also tell her friends were still her. After three tiring years, they remained steadfast.
A door opened, and hoofsteps could be heard.
“Excuse me, I’m glad you made it. I have something very important to discuss with you today.” There was a sound of glasses folding, and Pinkie perked her ears the best she could without being able to move.
“Miss Pie has been under a comatose state for over three years. Around this time, life support loses it’s effect on the body, and the body slowly shuts down.” Pinkie was taken aback. Was that her fate? To slowly die, like an animal in the cold who had no food?
“But, there is an alternative.”
“Oh, yes! Anything but letting her die like that!” Applejack said hurriedly. The doctor sighed.
“We could inject a sort of poison into her IV line. She would die quickly, painlessly, and would move on from her current state of suspension.” And there it was. The two choices. The slow grave or the poisoned dagger. It was silent except for a ticking clock. Finally, Twilight’s shaky voice spoke up.
“I say we give her the poison. It would be much quicker, and she wouldn’t suffer, just like the doctor here says.”
“I agree, sugarcube.”
"I... um..." Fluttershy sounded like she was about to cry. "I have to agree."
"Pinkie was a dear... I don't want her to die in a potentially painful way. I say the poison."
“It’s up to you, Rainbow.” Twilight said softly. “You’re Pinkie’s best friend. You should have the final say in the matter.”
It was silent. Pinkie waited for her friend’s answer. Surely Dashie wouldn’t desert her. Right? Finally, Rainbow sighed.
“The poison.”
“Alright, I’ll be back with it shortly.” The doctor left. Suddenly, Rainbow broke down, sobbing on top of Pinkie Pie’s chest.
“I’m so sorry, Pink! I never thought… I’d never do this… It’s for your own good…”
And Pinkie cried too. Her friends had chosen to desert her. Her closest associates, her sisters, were killing her.
The doctor returned with a syringe. Pinkie could tell. For one instant, she saw everything. Her friends cried, and the doctor injected the needle into the IV line. Rainbow sobbed.
“I love you, Pinkie. You were always my sister…” Dash’s raspy voice said softly.
NO! I’M STILL HERE! LET ME GO, PLEASE! She screamed, pounding on the walls her mind had put up around her. Still, the poison coursed through her veins, draining her life from her body.
Please, don’t… Her words grew fainter and fainter, until finally, everything went black, and the cold enveloped her. She didn’t wake up again.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
True to her will, which Pinkie had written a long time ago for fun, her tombstone had her cutie mark etched into it. Celestia had complied with her wishes, and the Element of Laughter was placed in the stone. And chiseled into the stone was a single phrase, not as a suggestion, but a warning to all the ponies in Equestria.
Never Stop Smiling.
Author's Note
So... yeah. It was inspired by the cover art, actually, and it hit me so hard, I just HAD to write a fic.
