Another day on the rock farm, another day of gloom and sorrow. She truly hated the life she had, it was absent of rich color and sincere laughter. It was absent of smiles, and it was absent of any degree of cheer. It strained her soul to stay there, moving rocks from one end of the farm to the other. She simply didn’t know what to do with her life.
She expected today to be as bleak as any other, but days in Equestria rarely line up that way for too long. She stood there in the south field, staring at the day’s work ahead of her. It was the usual preparation for rotation. She never understood the need for rotation, or even the workings of a rock farm. She only worked on it, after all. She left the matters of business and production to her father, and that was more than fine.
Without warning there was a flash of light and an eruption of sound like nothing anypony had experienced before. She couldn’t help herself; her eyes practically pulled themselves skyward and witnessed the eruption of color.
As suddenly as it had begun, it froze. There in the sky, a ring of vibrant rainbow color stood frozen, threatening to burn a hole in the otherwise dull grey. She gazed at it for she knew not how long, but during all that time she could feel her lips twitching and threatening to break into a broad almost endless grin.
She sighed and looked back at her family, and noticed that they were frozen in position. None of them moved at all, not even a hint of breath. As flesh and bone as they appeared, they were still as statues to her eyes.
She turned her gaze back to the sky, and saw that the ring of color was still there and frozen just as she’d remembered seconds before.
“It’s so pretty, isn’t it?” said an unusually cheerful voice from beside her.
Her eyes widened at the sudden intrusion on the silence and stillness, and she jumped as she turned to see somepony who looked an awful lot like her. Except that where her hair hung straight and listless along her head and neck, her look-a-like’s mane was caught in an unmanageable mess atop her head. She looked down at her forelegs, and then at her look-a-like’s forelegs, and noticed a difference in the brightness of their individual coats.
After a moment of this observation, her look-a-like turned to meet her gaze. The eyes were bright blue, like an ocean bathed in morning sunlight. It was disquieting to say the least. How could another pony so closely resemble her and yet seem so distant from similarity at the same time?
“Do you like it?” the look-a-like asked cheerfully. It was at these words spoken directly to her that Pinkamena first noticed the broad smile on the face of her look-a-like.
Pinkamena could only remember how to nod at that moment.
“It makes me smile…” said the look-a-like, “and that feels really good!”
Pinkamena blinked, her own blue eyes were pools of blue as seen under the shadow of a mountain. Dark, and deep, and full of mystery. She had no joy to speak off in her own appearance. It all hung as though were it not for her bones, she might simply have been a puddle on the ground.
“Hey, don’t you speak?” asked her look-a-like with a hint of curiosity and understanding.
“Yes” she answered.
“Oooh! I like your voice! I bet you sound really nice when you sing, huh?”
Pinkamena blinked. She had honestly never thought about it, and she had certainly never tried it. No song had ever come to her mind to sing, and no music ever seemed to fit the rock farm.
“Who are you…?” asked Pinkamena of her look-a-like.
“Me? Oh… hehehe…” her look-a-like broke into a fit of giggles that left Pinkamena confused, “I don’t have a name.”
Pinkamena cocked her head, causing her mane to shiver slightly as it adjusted to a new position. She hadn’t expected a response like that. A filly without a name? That seemed very sad to her.
“But that’s okay, I don’t need one” she said with a brilliant smile that seemed to offer light to the dreary atmosphere of the rock farm.
“What?”
The smile never left her voice as she asked her second question, “How does that color in the sky make you feel?”
Pinkamena blinked, caught slightly off guard by the sudden switch of topics. A small sigh escaped her lips as she turned her gaze back to the sky, and gazed at the ring of color still frozen there in the sky.
“It… makes me feel happy…” she said quietly. If there was happiness, her voice did not betray it in the least.
“Ooh! That’s a good feeling! You should try to smile!” her look-a-like chirped.
“Why?”
“Why not?”
Pinkamena took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
“Isn’t happy an amazing feeling?”
Pinkamena only nodded, her lips starting to curve very subtly. It didn’t escape her look-a-like’s notice.
“Almost there! Keep going! You can do it! Smile!”
Pinkamena focused for a moment, then she remembered how it worked, and her lips curved into a sincere smile. She sighed, this time with relief and happiness, as she opened her eyes and looked at her look-a-like.
“Isn’t that great?” her look-a-like asked.
“Yes!” cried Pinkamena. She jumped at her own enthusiasm, startled by a volume and sincerity she hadn’t heard in her own voice before.
“I know! It’s amazing!”
Pinkamena stared at her look-a-like for what felt like an eternity.
“Why are you here?”
“Me? Oh, I’m here to offer you something…”
“What?”
“I want to help you to smile more often…”
Pinkamena thought this over for a moment. She remained staring at her look-a-like as she formed her next sentence.
“What about my parents and my sisters? I want them to smile too…”
She couldn’t believe how much the smile on her look-a-like’s face had grown. The smile seemed to defy reality as it crept over the sides of her face.
“That’s a great idea!” her look-a-like cried.
Pinkamena jumped back, startled. Nevertheless, she plucked up her courage and began to speak again.
“How can I do that…?” she asked.
“Hmmm…” began her look-a-like, “I think you’ll need a lot of sound, and color, and fun!”
Pinkamena scratched her head with a hoof. She had no idea how to arrange any of those things.
“How do I get those things?” she asked.
“I can help you with that!”
“How…?”
“Silly filly… How about a party? Those things are so much fun!”
“A party?”
Her look-a-like nodded energetically.
“I don’t know how to throw a party…”
Suddenly, the smile on her look-a-like’s face grew ever larger, which seemed even further out of the realm of possibility to Pinkamena.
“Silly filly! If I know how to do it, then you must know how to do it too!” she chirped.
“What?”
“Do you want to make your family smile?” her look-a-like asked.
“Yes!”
“Then, Pinkamena… Set me free!”
Pinkamena stared at her look-a-like, and her look-a-like stared right back at her.
“Set you free?”
The look-a-like nodded.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you need to smile more… that you need to laugh more… I mean that I’m a part of you… and Pinkamena, I want to help you smile… and I want to help you to help others smile too! That all sounds like lots of fun to me!”
Pinkamena stared at her look-a-like, more confused now than she was previously.
“You’re… a part of me?”
“Yup!”
“I don’t get it.”
“Oooh… Okay! I look like you, right?”
Pinkamena nodded.
“But, I’m you with happiness and cheer! I’m you with parties and friends and music and color!”
Pinkamena raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t get it.”
“I don’t know how to explain it better. Those colors burst in the sky, and suddenly I felt like reaching out!”
Pinkamena took a deep breath, attempting to make sense of this strange turn of events.
“Pinkamena… I see how sad you are here… but you don’t have to be sad! Nopony has to be sad!”
Pinkamena nodded at that. She agreed wholeheartedly with the idea that sadness needn’t be.
“Please let me help? Please please please please please please please please please please please—“
“How do I do that?”
“Oooh!” cried her look-a-like, “this is my favorite part of the story!”
“What?”
“Nothing!”
Suddenly her look-a-like approached her and wrapped her forelegs around her. Pinkamena found herself filled with a sudden warmth she had never felt before. A blinding light obscured her vision for a few seconds before finally fading away, and as it did Pinkamena could not find her look-a-like anywhere.
She sighed, and turned her gaze skyward.
Suddenly, everything came to life again. The burst of color and sound gave way to an intense shockwave that pushed Pinkamena’s mane straight back into the air. As soon as it had passed her, her mane sprang back up in a knot above her head and her lips broke into a grin that seemed to betray reality. The colors in the sky reflected in her brightening eyes as she felt her smile growing in size.
She felt free, happy, and light. She felt like smiling all the time. She brought her gaze back to her family, and watched as they stared in confusion at the sky. She smiled all the while, and thought to herself where the best place to throw a party would be. At this, she began to hum tunelessly. It seemed simply to form itself, and words began to spring to mind as she did this.
Life felt livable again. Everywhere she looked there was color, and sound, and her heart was filled with music and everything seemed brighter to her than it had before. It was amazing just how much the world had changed after seeing that burst of color in the sky.
She looked back at the rocks she was to work on, and she smiled at them. Today, she was going to have fun!
