My name is Mikari Otohime, and I am what can be called a Main Character. I’ve always been one, or at least always had the potential to be one. My father, bless him, raised me to know what to look for, what to avoid, so that I could lead a relatively normal life. I never made childhood promises. I sat in the center of class; never near the windows or door. If there was a transfer student who joined our class, no matter the time of year, I’d make sure there were at least one or two others seated between us. Giant monsters or robots fighting in the city? I’d either ignore them or get away. Talking animals, old people, or otherwise odd people in need of rescuing? Call animal patrol, the police, or other specialists to do the job. Strange, mystical artifact? Sell it, or throw it away.
My father would always tell me that it was because of my pink hair. I always thought that part of it came from my last name, which means “youngest princess.” Some, who seem aware of the narrative, think I’m strange for fighting so hard against having a story. Some say I’m lucky to have a last name such as that, it means I have a destiny. I don’t want a destiny, a device to direct my life. It’s like a branding, or a mark. Like there’s an invisible crown atop my gelled-flat pink hair.
I am Mikari Otohime, and I hate my life.
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¦Prologue¦
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It was a fairly regular day in the Nerima ward, and I only say that because there were martial artists competing in some competition while a giant alien robot used the school as a bed and took a nap after having destroyed half of Tokyo. Of course, this was the Nerima ward, but most of the other wards had magical girl syndrome; this one was relatively free of the stupid, simplistic senshi. Even with everything going on around me, I kept up the smile on my face as I talked to my mom. “... No, I haven’t met any uninteresting boys at school, mom; the next thing I know, that otaku with the gun license and I will end up as two of the last in a group of survivors during a zombie apocalypse, alien invasion, or a bad rendition of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. I’m not gonna start dating unless the guy is as unremarkable as dad.”
My mother giggled like a schoolgirl, grinning as she quirked an eyebrow. “I’ll have you know that your father was quite the extraordinary man, Mika, but you’re not old enough for that genre yet, anyways.” I stick my tongue out at her, slightly disgusted by the thought.
“Eww, mom, don’t say things like that!” I shake my head, my long hair curling up at the end before falling once into its gel-slicked flat-line look. Twice I’ve looked in the mirror with spiky hair that resembled well-coiffed bedhead. Both times I nearly ripped my hair right off.
I like spending time with my mom, though. Thanks to narrative casualty, she had to leave when I was born or else either her or my father could have suffered anything from a disease to a fatal accident. I’d rather they be separated than my being the next Batman.
The sky above was quickly being filled with clouds, as if they were behind schedule for the downpour they held. Frowning at them for forcing me home and away from mom, I turned to her and gave her a quick hug before dashing off. With a tingling sensation down the back of my neck, my eyes went wide, and then the lightning struck, turning the world around me blue, green, and white, and finally... black.
To be honest, when I’d began stirring awake, my body awash with pain like I’d never known, I sent a prayer up to every god and goddess and begged them to just let this be it, let this little girl with no story die quietly. I knew it wouldn’t happen, of course. Chances were good that I’d either wake up with super powers, or suddenly realize that Thor or Zeus was my real father all along. It took me a moment to force my eyes open, but when I did, everything was so... colorful. It was like I’d been living my entire life in a dull, gray void, and a kindergarten class had been let loose on the world with crayons.
I’d been told that I was a broken, emotionless wreck, but that was never the case around my parents. Now, though, I’m feeling a new emotion rise: panic. I wasn’t in the Nerima ward anymore. In fact, I wasn’t anywhere that I recognized throughout Japan. It was much too lusciously green, the sunlight too warm and vibrant. And maybe it was the fact that I was giving into my panic, but I barely noticed when wings on my back responded to my need to flee, to get away, and started flapping instinctively, hurling me through the sound barrier before I’d even gotten twenty feet.
It was a long while later when my panic calmed itself into the dull, cold realization that I wasn’t in Japan anymore (Toto not included), meaning that I had probably been pulled into another dimension that would try to pull me into another stupid, monster-of-the-week style adventure or quest, where in the end I’ll realize that I’m the glitter-fairy princess; youngest of nine. What a joy that would be, to live up to my own name.
It came as a numb, dulled surprise when I finally realized that I was a winged, horned pony. Maybe it's the fact that I've been turned into a cat three separate times, or a boy once. I still haven't forgiven that jerk and her panda for that little number, even if they did have the cursed water of being a girl handy.
It wasn't until I noticed the small, glittering crown stamped on my rear like a bumper sticker that I truly got angry. It wasn't just a mental image, or a symbol on an ancient artifact that "only works for the chosen one," this was a mark upon my body, no different than my hair... which was now pink with black streaks. Just great.
I was in a large clearing, surrounded on all sides by twisted, evil looking trees. My horn lit up with a brilliant sky blue, glittering aura as the thought of those trees burnt to a crisp entered my mind. I shook off the thought, calming myself down until the shimmering magic faded away. The last thing I wanted to was use magic and somehow bind myself in this form, though for all I knew my earlier use of the flight or fight instinct could have done the job.
Sighing in resignation, I pulled leaves off a few of the trees until I had some nice bedding for when it got dark. Based on the sun's position, that could be anywhere in the next few hours, so I had some time to do a fly over and see if I could find the portal back home, or a lightning bolt strong enough to do the trick.
This land definitely seemed like something of a mid to high fantasy world, like Tolkien's The Hobbit, or for a more recent example, Log Horizon (even if the latter is within the confines of a video game). I'd only seen two towns so far, one built onto the side of a far off mountain, and a rather Roman-looking one located in the clouds floating lazily over the forest I was taking refuge in.
While I could have flown to either of them with ease, I didn’t feel like running into any other creatures in this realm, os I instead simply laid down and willed myself to sleep. It was a surreal experience, because in my dreams I was at once both my human self and my pony self, dancing on opposite sides of a dimensional divide, playing a deadly game of dodgeball as if the victor would decide which side would be my own.
I awoke feeling sad and scared, the morning sun glowing on the horizon mocking me, like a satire of my mother’s warm smile every time we got to meet. I swallowed a lump that was forming in my throat. I missed home. It was only the first sunrise, and I was already feeling homesick. I hated this, I hated feeling this way, almost as much as I hated my pink hair.
“Heya! Wowie, the Princess wasn’t kidding, you look like a mess!” I felt a chill run up and down my spine, the wings on my back instinctively flaring out as if preparing to take off. I turned slowly around to see a completely pink pony, with no horn nor wings, staring at me with a wide smile.
“I... what..?” I looked at her incredulously, until something hit me, and I jumped up from my bed of leaves, crouching low to the ground. “Ahh! Where’d you come from?! Who sent you?!” I likely sounded hysterical, but having hated the color pink my entire life, having a pony colored in only that color suddenly already beside me was too much.
"Well, even though you didn't ask, my name's Pinkie Pie! Or that's what everypony calls me, my real name is Pinkamena Diane Pie, but that's rather a mouthful, so Pinkie is what most call me instead! I came from a town called Ponyville on the other side of the Everfree Forest! Princess Luna sent me; she said you'd been having a dream that I could help cheer you up about!" She smiled at me in a Genki Girl way that put in mind the senshi that had tried recruiting me, and about five or six of the girls running around the school like NPC quest givers waiting for a player to begin their quests.
Wait... "You say your name is Diane?" The smile on her face morphed for a second, before coming back, full force.
“Wowie, you recognized that name, huh? You’re not from here, are ya?” She hopped forward, a sproing! sproing! sproing! noise accompanying each movement. “Cool, I’m not from here, either! I’m actually from Canada!” I quirked an eyebrow at her. It seemed strange to me that she spoke such fluent Japanese if she was from Canada. She didn’t even have an accent. Pinkie glanced up and then to the side for a second, before looking at me again. “Actually, this entire world is full of magic; you’re just hearing Japanese because that’s what you understand. Whenever you talk, I just hear a mix of English and French slang!”
“Oh, that’s... interesting,” I murmured. Having something like that could mean that this world doesn’t even have a language; they just understand one another instinctively, I thought to myself. I shook my head to clear it, scowling at her. "Stop that."
"Stop what?"
"Reading my mind," I growled, getting rather fed up with this mare.
"Oh, but I'm not reading your mind, silly! I'm reading the Narrative!" She smiled and posed, arms flung outwards as if pointing at the world around her. "The entire world's a story, ya know? Heck, every universe is a story, with every galaxy having a story, and every star and planet having a story in that galaxy's story, and each country, nation, and population having a story, and every person having a story in floss populations, countries, and nations!"
"Everyone but me, you mean," I added sullenly. "I may have been born as a Main Character, but I don't want to be one. I just want to be a normal little girl with a normal family that has normal teenager problems. Not..." I vaguely waved towards myself, then Pinkie, and the rest of the area. "...this."
Pinkie nodded sadly as I finished speaking, approaching more casually as I sank to the ground, feeling strangely exhausted. She put a hoof on my shoulder, patting gently. "You're wrong, you know," she finally said, sounding subdued.
"Hmm? What makes you think that? I've been very careful with my life; I haven't done anything to give myself a story."
"But you've been narrating for the past thousand words or whatever, and that's only since you woke up in Equestria."
I groaned, planting my head between my hooves. "My father always told me to stop with the narration because main characters tend to do that, but I figured that if there are other potential main characters out there who want to avoid getting into a story, I should leave something to guide them."
Pinkie frowns, tapping a hoof to her chin. "But that's the thing, isn't it? Not to reiterate or anything, but, narration, in any form, is telling a story. It could be a letter you write. A diary you've kept. Even you thinking about it is creating the story somewhere, right? I mean, just look at us now!"
"Mikari takes a step back, a look of confusion slowly turning to one of horror as she reaches out, shouting 'Pinkie, no!' but it's too late, the pony had already--hmmphrrhmmrrmmm!" Pinkie pulls Mikari's hoof from her mouth. "Sorry, was that a bad example?"
"No... Yes... I don't know, Pinkie... Maybe I don't want to be the main character of some pre-made genre; maybe instead, I want to just set an example that you don't have to be the main attraction in a story, you can be the wife waiting for her husband to return from war, or the boy who grows up in a normal town that doesn't have robot attacks or alien invasions every other day. Maybe, Pinkie, I'd rather be that than the main character. Not even a side character, but a one-off, the character that's on screen just because they're watching or reading the news about the main characters, who are far, far away from where they are."
Pinkie looks at me with a sad smile, before pulling me into a hug. "Even if you're not some sort of superhero, or villain, or even a super genius learning about friendship, you are still the protagonist of your story, and you should make it a good story." Apparently done with her sage advice, Pinkie let go of me and then helped me to my hooves. "I'll tell ya now that I'm actually a main character myself, except I'm kinda like you, a meta character. The difference between us is that I realized how I wanted my story to go, way back when I first had my own Epiphany Moment: it'd been two years since I'd woken up in Equestria, but being a kid only just nine years old, I couldn't tell if my memories of home were real, or just escapism from living on a rock farm. But when I saw the Sonic Rainboom, I felt happy and unconfused for the first time in forever, and I KNEW that what I wanted was to be happy and spread that happiness to everypony I met! And then I inspired a pony named Cheese Sandwich to do the same thing, so happiness and cheer spread doubly so all across Equestria!"
I looked at her, a small frown on my face, trying to work out what she was saying. "I... what does any of that have to do with me avoiding the numerous attempts at Fate forcing itself on me?"
"Because, silly! You, like almost every other TV character out there, was meant to beat Fate! The fate you were fighting just happened to be all of them!"
"But fate's still got me here until I can find a way back home!" I look around, feeling uneasy again. I can't just stay here, then date would win!
Pinkie smiled coyly at me, her hoof running through the poofy curls of her mane. "Don't be silly, Mikari!"
"Wait, when did you—"
With a yank of her hoof, a large iron door came falling out of her mane, landing upright in the grass. "You can go home whenever you want, see?" She pushed the door open, revealing my mom and dad on the opposite side, crying as they held the burnt end of my pink and black striped scarf.
"But that's..." I knew better than to say impossible; living the way I have gave you a wide perspective about the world. Literally nothing was impossible, but... "That's too easy. What, this is it?" I turned to glare at Pinkie as she smiled sweetly back.
"Yep! Well, if you use your Alicorn magic on it, at least. Right now, it's just a viewing screen, like a TV set to the viewer's home universe!" She wilted a bit, her smile becoming sheepish. "I can't use it to get myself home because you need all three types of pony magic, and I only have the one."
I closed my eyes, my breathing shallow and near-laboured, before turning back to the door. "This world is...nice. Maybe a bit too colorful for me, but nice. If I ever end up here again, I'll come find you, okay?" I have her a small smile, my eyes stinging. "You've...given me some perspective on being a main character. 'Don't need to be a hero' and all that, right? I wonder if that makes me Slice of Life..."
It took me nearly an hour to learn earth pony magic from Pinkie, while it took mere minutes to get the pegasus and unicorn magics flowing. After powering the door, I turned to the pink pony. I'd only known her a few hours, but she already felt like a lifetime friend.
"Pinkie... if I never come back..." She surprised me by stepping forward and kissing me on the cheek.
"Never say never, okay? Besides," she said with a giggle, "I thought you didn't do childhood promises!" My face aflame with a blush, I jumped through the doorway, her sweet, sincere laughter tinkling like chimes in my ears.
My name is Mikari Otohime, and I am a main character. I don't fight robots, and I don't wear a magical skirt, but my best friend is the pony in my closet, and my life has never been happier.
