Chapter One—Involves Breaking the Fourth Wall
Spring had come in earnest to Equestria, and with the conclusion of Winter Wrap Up every pony spent time indulging in the pleasant weather and newfound warmth. Twilight Sparkle celebrated the occasion by reading The Egghead’s Guide to Self-Referential Fiction upon her palace balcony in Ponyville, where it was quiet and she could concentrate without getting distur—
“Twilight, come quick!” Spike flung open the glass doors to her personal study just a little too hard (they rattled but thankfully didn’t shatter) and nearly tripped as he skidding to a stop before her, gasping for breath. His small dragon chest heaved in and out, and his eyes were quite wild.
“What’s wrong?” Twilight sprang to her hooves at once, steeling herself for whatever calamity might either have happened or be on its way (as had been the case several instances in the past). Instinctively, she reached out with one of her alicorn wings and wrapped it about her number one assistant for additional support. “Is some pony hurt or in trouble?”
“No,” Spike croaked.
“Did Princess Celestia send an urgent letter for help from Canterlot?”
“Not recently.”
“An evil presence in Ponyville?”
“Not today.”
Hmm. When Spike was this worked up, it had usually been for those types of reasons. Unless—
“Is it something involving Rarity?” Twilight guessed.
“Thank Celestia, no,” Spike muttered, with more relief in the answer than the others preceding it. “Nothing like that at all.”
Well, Twilight was out of ideas. “So, what is the matter?”
“Pinkie Pie has a cannon!” Spike answered, covering his head with both claws as if ducking for cover.
…
…
…
“Spike,” Twilight said, folding in her wing and becoming just a little confused. “I don’t understand what the problem is—Pinkie Pie has always had a cannon. It shoots off confetti and other party-related stuff, but there’s no harm in it. Don’t you remember that?” She laid a reassuring hoof on Spike’s shoulder, yet soon her assistant had moved away to the edge of the balcony and pointed down toward the street below.
“I don’t mean her party cannon. I mean—that!”
Twilight set aside her book and came to peer over the railing, where she espied Ponyville’s top party pony (and one of her best friends), Pinkie Pie, pushing a huge dark cannon on wheels along the pathway approaching the palace. Residents hopped out of the way or paused to watch her go by, giving the same incredulous look Twilight doubtless wore at that exact moment. But Pinkie Pie kept at her task without a single delay, smiling her happiest smile and calling greetings to the ponies she passed as on any other day.
Along the cannon barrel were these words in large, white block letters:
ULTIMATE WALL-BREAKER CANNON DELUXE
In an instant, Spike had hopped onto Twilight’s back, and the pair were gliding down to meet Pinkie Pie.
***
“Hi, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, pausing at last to swipe the sweat off her brow with one hoof. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, Pinkie,” Twilight answered, before pressing on, “But, may I ask why you’ve brought a cannon to my front door?”
For the briefest second, Pinkie stared at Twilight as if she were the one being questioned. But then she caught on. “Oh! This is just the cannon I’m going to use to break the fourth wall, and I wanted to come over to visit you, so you can help me celebrate it.” She smiled with a small squee. “It’ll be so much fun!”
“Do what now?” Spike asked, while Twilight sighed.
But before Twilight could say anything, she caught sight of Applejack and Fluttershy from the corner of her eye, rushing over.
“Pinkie, what in the wide realm of Equestria are you doing now?” Applejack asked, though her eyes slid over to Twilight almost right away.
“Pinkie says she’s going to ‘break the fourth wall’,” Twilight stated.
“It sounds scary.” Fluttershy shuddered, and even her white rabbit Angel retreated into her long, pink mane at the mention.
“And where exactly is this here fourth wall?” Applejack asked.
“Everywhere!” Pinkie flung out her hooves and twirled her upper body around like a corkscrew, before spinning back into her usual shape.
Applejack, Fluttershy, and Spike peered around in uncertainty.
“Pinkie Pie, I think there’s been some misunderstanding,” Twilight said. “You can’t break the fourth wall.”
Spike tapped Twilight on the shoulder. “But Twilight, I still don’t know—what does Pinkie Pie mean by ‘breaking the fourth wall’?”
“I’d like to know that too, please,” Fluttershy spoke up.
“Same here.” Applejack sat down.
“Me too,” this was Rainbow Dash, drifting down from her small bed of clouds and hovering over the ground.
“Don’t forget about me.” Rarity trotted over, dressed in a sunbonnet and light blue shawl. Spike instantly scooted over to her side, with hearts clear in his eyes.
***
“’Breaking the fourth wall’,” Twilight said, doing her best to sound authoritative and remember her research on the subject, “Refers to any instance in which a work of fiction points out its artificiality.” Then, before any pony could ask what that meant, “In other words, when characters in a story make any mention to the fact they are in a story, it breaks the fourth wall. According to my book—” Twilight teleported The Egghead’s Guide to Self-Referential Fiction before her and flicked through the pages, “Narrators of a story tend to invoke this the most often, in order to add humor to tale, extra description, or simply to help the audience feel they can participate in the storytelling process.”
“Ooooooh,” her friends said as one. The sole exception was Pinkie, who had begun to polish her cannon throughout Twilight’s explanation.
“However,” Twilight made sure to emphasize this, catching Pinkie’s glance and holding it tight, “As stated, it is only for ‘work of fiction’, not real life. Theater troupes use it during their performances, calling out to the ponies in the audience or reacting to what members of the audience say and/or do. It’s a fascinating term and concept, but not something tangible or applicable to us. That is because there is no such thing as a fourth wall in Equestria.”
“That’s not true, Twilight,” Pinkie interjected. “I know it for a fact.”
“You do?” Rainbow Dash asked. “How?”
“Perhaps Discord mentioned it as a prank?” Fluttershy said. “It does sound like something he might do.” Here she paused. “Just for fun.” Then, after a slightly longer pause, “Even though I have faith he didn’t mean any harm by it!”
“No. Discord didn’t tell me about this,” Pinkie Pie said, which seemed to make Fluttershy feel much better. “The narrator did.”
“Like the narrator of a story, darling?” Rarity asked. “When did this happen?”
“I got up this morning as usual,” Pinkie Pie said. “Then I did my morning exercises, happy, sad, happy, sad, and happy.” She went through the motions and gestures, smiling and frowning as she swept her hoof back and forth across her face. “And then I changed Pumpkin and Pound Cakes’ diapers—they were stinky!” She pinched her snout between her hooves. “And then I went down to heat up the ovens downstairs in Sugarcube Corner, like I do every morning. But then I realized—”
“Realized, what?” Applejack asked.
“That I could hear some pony narrating everything that I was doing, and even hinting at what I was thinking.” Pinkie Pie had leaned in close to her friends at this point, delivering this revelation in a low tone as one might a dark secret.
Fluttershy trembled, and her knees knocked together in fright. Rarity drew back with a gasp—one hoof placed up against her brow. Spike bit the tips of his claws. Rainbow Dash and Applejack listened in wide-eyed amazement.
Meanwhile, Twilight rolled her eyes.
“T—t—then what hap—happened?” Fluttershy stuttered.
“I sat back and asked, ‘Who are you, weird voice in my head’? And she said, ‘Why, I’m the narrator telling your story right now!’ Then I said, ‘Oh my gosh, on my gosh, on my gosh. Have you been in Ponyville a while?’ To which she answered, ‘I have.’” At this point, Pinkie Pie sat back. “Hearing that made me so sad, because she was some pony who had been in Ponyville, and I had never known about until then. This meant she might have been lonely, and I asked if we could be friends. And you know what? She said, ‘yes!’ Isn’t that great?”
“Terrific,” Twilight muttered.
“’Oh, yes. She went on to say that I shouldn’t worry, because she wasn’t lonely at all (being the narrator and knowing what I was thinking)—and that she had a bunch of friends wherever she was who could hear us as well.’” Pinkie pressed onwards. “’This surprised me since it meant there were all kinds of friends I hadn’t met yet somewhere. So I got sad again.” Her eyes grew large and doleful.
And despite being dumbfounded by her strange confession, their friends gathered closer about Pinkie in sympathy. Rarity even laid a consoling hoof on her shoulder.
Twilight was aware her mouth was hanging open and closed it.
Pinkie sniffed. “After that, I asked if I could become friends with them, or if I could hear them—and the narrator said I’d have to break the fourth wall to do it. She gave me this magic cannon to do it and said to fire it off. By doing that, I’ll be able to hear all my new friends, as well as you!” Throughout this speech, she had seemed to perk up considerably (her eyes lighting up and her puffy mane inflating even more than usual). She bounded over to a rope attached to the end of the cannon, which had a tag on it that read:
PULL HERE
Pinkie Pie reached out and gripped it, with the cannon end pointed high towards the skies. “Then I can throw a huge party for every pony.”
“Pinkie, wait!” Twilight used her magic to release Pinkie’s hold on the rope. “I don’t think you should do this.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t sound right. First of all, a strange telepathic voice—”
“The narrator.”
“Some pony claiming to be ‘the narrator’ begins talking to you out of nowhere—”
“I talked to her first, Twilight.”
“Some pony you didn’t know and couldn’t see began talking to you, claiming to be the narrator,” Twilight rushed through this statement. And then, before Pinkie to protest, pressed on, “She claimed to have been around ‘for a while’ and to be have a lot of friends for you to meet, so you felt sad and asked for a way to know them.”
“That’s better,” Pinkie said, speaking as if Twilight was at last coming to understand her reasoning—which, in fact, caused Twilight to groan internally because it was Pinkie who needed to understand.
“And then, by some strange magic, this narrator gave you a cannon and asked you to shoot it off into the skies to break the fourth wall.”
“Precisely!”
“Don’t you see what’s going on?” Twilight groaned aloud, wondering how even Pinkie couldn’t see the inherent danger of the situation. “This is obviously a trap set up by a villain somewhere, who wanted to take advantage of your good nature to make you unleash something horrible on Equestria using this cannon.”
“Goodness,” Fluttershy exclaimed from behind. “You don’t really think that’s the reason, do you?”
“I wouldn’t put it past any foul fiends or evil demons,” Rarity remarked.
“I’d like to see this ‘Narrator’ show her face around here.” Rainbow Dash smirked. “We’d kick her back from wherever she and her minions came—and be totally awesome while doing it.”
“That makes it sound almost like Chrysalis and her changelings,” Applejack said. “If it is them, that is.”
“They are still a threat to Equestria, and they’ve messed with ponies’ minds before,” Twilight replied. “Or, maybe this really is a prank by Discord.”
“Twilight!” Fluttershy spoke up then. “Discord would never—or, I don’t think he—” she trailed off.
“Wait a minute!”
Pinkie Pie’s shout drowned out the tense discussion, causing them to quiet down and turn to her. And Twilight could see that her gaze was dead serious now. “It wasn’t any of those ponies. I heard the narrator, and she was who she said. We became friends, and she wanted to help introduce me to her other friends. I could tell she meant it.” Her mane deflated a bit. “Don’t you trust me?”
Her last words hung in the air. Twilight felt something deep inside her quiver for a moment, and gazed at their friends—all of whom were looking at her with a bit of a shame and much expectancy.
Twilight took a deep breath and stepped forward. “Pinkie, we believe your friendship is genuine, no matter where it comes from—and we will always trust you to do what’s right.”
“Yeeup,” Applejack seconded, followed by confirmations by the other ponies.
“So if you believe it would be the best to fire the cannon, then we will support you,” Twilight continued.
“Besides,” Rainbow Dash put in, “If it does turn out that whoever this narrator pony is a bad guy, we can just use our friendship to save the day, right?”
“Because our friendship is more powerful than anything,” Twilight agreed.
“Thanks, every pony,” Pinkie sniffed. Tears were forming in her eyes again, yet they were clearly for a different (and much nicer) reason.
And the six friends shared a group hug before Pinkie gripped the cannon string once more.
“Ready?” Pinkie asked.
“All set,” Twilight replied, once all the residents were safely inside their homes and she had erected a magical barrier about them.
Pinkie pulled the string.
***
The crack of an explosion echoed through the streets—followed by a deafening sounds of what could have been a large window shattering. Smoke billowed about the ponies, and when it cleared the cannon had mysteriously vanished.
Twilight and the other ponies stood before the castle, their ears ringing from the shot, although the magical barrier had at least helped in that regard and kept them from any harm.
But, looking about, there was no discernible difference.
The ponies waited for a long, tense moment—gazing about as if expecting a whole herd of new ponies to come rushing in upon them.
Still, there was nothing.
Pinkie walked about a bit in the streets, searching, until finally she sat down and bowed her head. “I’m sorry I let you down.”
Twilight watched her friend sitting there, so low and with her hopes dashed. And a flare ignited inside her.
“’Narrator’!” Twilight called to the skies. “Wherever you are, watching us with your friends. Pinkie Pie needs to know you’re there. She wants to be friends with all of you, if you will just give her some sign that you are there. Say something. Anything. And we’ll be happy, because Pinkie Pie’s happiness means the world to us. Please! Just speak, and our ‘story’ can come to a good conclusion.”
“Yes, please say something,” Fluttershy added.
“Please, darlings,” Rarity said. “Pinkie Pie is counting on you.”
“Prove you’re true pals,” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
“We’ll have a right good time knowing you’re around.” Applejack removed her hat and placed it upon her chest, gazing overhead alongside her friends.
“Please,” Pinkie said.
[What Would You Answer…..?]
Author's Note
Your comments will be mentioned and praised in the epilogue. ;3 This is kind of a "what if," situation.
Epilogue: Which is Happy for Every Pony
Voices echoed in a chorus from above and everywhere else, like sweet music that radiated through the streets of Ponyville.
And Twilight could hear them, as she did the narrator at that moment, and her mind froze momentarily at the implications by all of it.
Did this mean that Equestria, Ponyville, and her life have been fabricated by some distant, unknown pony? For all she knew, the narrator or writer responsible for what was happening right now might not have even been the original creator!
The world for her seemed to whirl at this.
But, no! That couldn’t be.
Twilight refused to believe that.
There had to be some logical explanation.
At the very least, it might have been possible to reason that these ponies—whoever and wherever they were—came from another dimension entirely, and several prevalent philosophers from the classical period in Equestrian history would not have discounted this theory. In addition, she had had sufficient evidence that such a thing could be true from when her friends and she had returned the breezies back to their own world, separate from their own.
It didn’t necessarily mean that they had proved the artificiality of their own world, right?
“Whatever makes you feel better,” Rainbow Dash murmured in a half-daze, apparently having heard the narration describe Twilight’s thought process. “Way weirder things have happened.”
“Whoa, Nelly,” Applejack simply said, doffing her hat and pressing it to her chest.
Twilight, for a moment, wondered why the narrator only described her own thoughts as opposed to those of her friends. Yet she brushed these aside for a moment, because there was some pony of much more importance in in her mind at that moment.
“Pinkie Pie, look what you did,” Twilight said, causing Pinkie Pie to look up in wonder and wipe at her snout with a hoof. “You said there were new friends out there waiting to meet us, and you were right.”
“Sweet Celestia,” Rarity murmured, and then stared at her dress. “If I’d known we were going to have guests, I would have worn something far more fashionable than this! Do you think they mind?”
“I—I don’t believe so, Rarity.” Fluttershy, meanwhile, had consequentially leapt into the nearest rain barrel to escape what she must have perceived as the eyes of millions staring in upon her. “But, it is a little scary. What do you suppose we should do, now that they can hear us and we can hear them?”
Well, Twilight knew one thing. She glanced at Pinkie Pie, who was clearly reveling in the flood of comments and what they meant. And all the while, her smile was growing ever larger. Her whole form began to vibrate, and any moment she would probably shoot off.
Before that happened, however, there was something she had to do to assert at least some normalcy (and simply not to be rude).
“Welcome, every pony!” Twilight called out to the ponies in the other dimension (or wherever they happened to be). “My name is Princess Twilight Sparkle, and my dear friends and I want to keep you warm greetings to Ponyville. We hope you’ll have a great time here.”
“Pleased to meet y’all,” Applejack replaced the hat on her head, for the express purpose of tipping it to the arrivals. “Name’s Applejack.”
“Delighted to make your acquaintance,” Rarity said. “I’m Rarity Unicorn. Please let me know your size and preferred style, and I’ll be glad to put together a fashionable ensemble for you.”
“Hm. Hi,” Fluttershy whispered, lifting her head out of the rain barrel. “I’m Fluttershy.” She said the last word almost inaudibly, but thanks to the strength of the written word all could still hear her quite clearly. “Oh, dear,” she then added, at that narrative comment.
“Hah, and I’m sure you already know me, Rainbow Dash!” Rainbow Dash zipped about in the air, leaving a noticeable rainbow streak in her wake before climbing high into the skies so quickly she caused a great sonic rainboom to burst forth.
However, the sharp report from this quickly got drowned out by Pinkie Pie launching high into the air on a pink trail of pure joy:
“Thank you, thank you! I’m Pinkie Pie! I’m so glad you’re here to be my friends. We’re going to have so much together, playing games, telling stories, and on, and on, and on, and on!” Any other pony, leaping high as she had, would have come crashing down on the ground. Yet, being who she was and having a little story-related help, managed to stop in her rapid descent a hoof or so above the ground, before drifting down the rest of the way. “Thanks!” She said. “Let’s party, every pony!”
***
With this, all the ponies who lived in Ponyville emerged from their homes and flooded the street—and what happened from that point onwards was a grand occasion, filled with all the most wondrous games and music one could imagine (and you can imagine whatever you please at this point in the story).
Pinkie Pie couldn’t have been happier, doing her best (alongside those of her friends) to respond to all of the comments and questions that came their way.
And Ponyville’s top party pony bounded through the streets, crying out:
“Thank you, MBreeden, and Pegaseraph, and Xavy T Drag, and Pankrazius, and that pony who said they wanted to be ignored by I want to thank anyway!”
All spent a happy day in that land without the fourth wall, until late in the evening—when the narrator, a brown unicorn in a green cloak watching from afar, laid down her quill and ended the tale in a very quiet way.
The End
Author's Note
Narrator: Thanks to every one who responded! Even though this is the epilogue, what I plan to answer anyone's responses addressed the mane six characters (and regularly if it's clearly aimed at me) ^_^. I hope you enjoyed it!
