Are you sure I can fly? Even without wings?
Pinkie Pie trotted happily through Ponyville, smiling and waving at everypony that passed by. Her cheeks were sore from the constant smiling, but she forced herself to keep her reputation. She smiled through the pain, and didn’t let it show. She loved to make other ponies smile, and she hated it when somepony was sad.
You would think that all the smiling had toned her cheek muscles so it wouldn’t hurt her anymore when she smiled. But it would always hurt. The pain would never go away. Pinkie finally made it back to Sugarcube Corner, she smiled at the Cakes, greeting them happily and waving. Then she headed up to her room, finally letting her smile fall. She sat down on her bed and rubbed her cheeks with her hooves.
“Oh, Gummy…” Pinkie said to her adorable little alligator. She laid back on her bed, picking Gummy up and laying him on her stomach. “What do I do?” She asked him.
The small, toothless reptile just stared at her with his large purple eyes. Pinkie sighed and laid him on the bed away from her, rolling onto her stomach. She hugged her top pillow and nuzzled her face in it. She stared blankly at the wall in front of her.
She began to contemplate her life, the lives of all her many friends. She thought of her family, living on the rock farm. She thought of how much her life had changed since she moved to Ponyville. A small, sad smile creeped onto her lips and tears began to form in the corners of her eyes.
She closed her eyes, thoughts and pictures filled her head and tears streamed down her cheeks. She turned her head, so it was buried further into the pillow. The fabric of the pillow slowly soaked up her tears. She sobbed silently in her pillow for a few minutes, but stopped when she heard a knock on her door. She wiped her tears, put on her best smile and said in her most cheerful, happy voice, “Yes?!”
Mrs. Cake pushed the door opened and walked in. “Hello, Pinkie. I thought you might want a glass of chocolate milk.” Mrs. Cake said. placing a glass on Pinkie’s bedstand. Pinkie usually got some chocolate milk once she got back home after a long day, and today had been so bad that she must have forgotten.
“Thank you so much!” Pinkie chirped happily, smiling widely at Mrs. Cake and picking up the glass, taking a few large gulps, leaving it about half empty.
Mrs. Cake smiled back at her. “You are very welcome, Pinkie Pie.” She then turned and left the room, closing the door behind her.
Pinkie sighed. Yes, chocolate milk was, and always had been her favorite beverage, but she just wasn’t in the mood for it today. She carefully set the glass on her bedside table on a napkin so the condensation wouldn’t run down the glass, getting on the table. She continued to sit on her bed, leaving her back legs hanging off the edge. She stared at the glass sitting on the table, wondering if it had any meaning.
She noticed that the milk was just about half way between from the top and the bottom of the glass. “Would that be half full or half empty?” She asked herself. She stared at the glass a little longer, contemplating the question.
“You know it’s half empty.” Said a voice from inside her head.
“Who are you?” Pinkie asked the voice aloud. “And what makes you say that?”
“It’s the way you look at life.” She said. “I say that life isn’t just beginning, but it’s ending, slowly.” The voice said to Pinkie.
“That makes sense.” Pinkie nodded, agreeing with herself that the glass was indeed half empty. She wasn’t in the mood to argue with anypony, not even with a voice inside her head, so she just agreed.
She laid back down on her bed, on her back. Instead of staring at the wall, she stared at the ceiling. She sighed and closed her eyes beginning a conversation with herself. Or, more accurately, the voice inside her head.
“You know what would be great?” Pinkie asked herself.
“Flying? Free, like a pegasus. Flying high in sky with nopony to tell you what to do or where to go. Just going where the wind takes you. Literally.” The voice said, reading her mind.
“Yeah.” Pinkie said with a sigh. “Like Rainbow Dash. She seems to love flying. She flies all the time, and she’s always talking about how much she loves it.” Pinkie explained.
“Why don’t you just take her wings and use them for yourself?” The voice asked her.
Pinkie gasped and she bolted up to a sitting position in her bed. “But, Dashie’s my friend. Why would I do that?” Pinkie asked.
“So you can fly. Just like you’ve always wanted.” The voice explained.
“Would that even work?” Pinkie asked.
“Of course it would.” The voice assured her. “Wings always work no matter who they’re attached to.”
“I have a question.” Pinkie Pie asked her inner self.
“Yes?”
“What should I call you?” Pinkie asked.
“Oh, you can just call me….” It paused for a moment, thinking. “Pinkamena.” It said with a chilling, evil, psycho giggle.
“Ok.... Pinkamena…” Pinkie said awkwardly using her full first name. She laid back down on her bed, once again looking up at the ceiling. “Tell me, how exactly do I take Dashie’s wings for myself?” She asked.
“Well, you kill her of course.” Pinkamena said.
“But…” Pinkie said, rolling over onto her side, now talking in nearly a whisper. “I could never kill Dashie, she’s my friend.”
“Do you want to fly or not?” Pinkamena said rudely, almost yelling at Pinkie.
Pinkie jumped in her current position and gasped softly. “I.. I do… B-but, Pinkamena…” She said.
“Maybe you don’t need wings to fly.” Pinkamena said in a calmer, more reasonable voice.
“Really?” Pinkie chirped, brightening up a little.
“You could try.” Pinkamena said.
Pinkie yawned, realizing that she was tired. She closed her eyes and relaxed. Pinkamena, being a part of her head, living in her thoughts, read her mind. “Go ahead and sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Ohay.” Pinkie said through another yawn. She wiggled and stretched until she found herself in a comfortable sleeping position. Then she let the darkness fill her mind as she fell asleep.
* * *
When Pinkie jolted up in bed, the moon was still sitting high in the sky. It was still the middle of the night. She vividly remembered the nightmare that had awoken her so suddenly. She was walking in the Everfree Forest, looking at the trees, and watching the beautiful sunset. She reached a cliff, and she looked down, then up at the other side.
Pinkamena’s eerie voice echoed in her head. “Maybe you don’t need wings to fly.” Dream Pinkie took a step closer to the cliff, a few rocks dislodging and falling down into the depths of the seemingly never-ending valley beneath her hooves. She took a deep breath, spread her non-existent wings, and jumped.
Instead of soaring over the bottomless pit beneath her and landing safely on the other side, Pinkie Pie fell down into the depths of the hole. She tried to scream, but no sound escaped her lips. She kicked and flailed frantically in the air, trying to reverse the falling process, but nothing worked, and she continued to fall, faster and faster.
She turned and looked back up at the top of the cliff to see the frantic faces of her friends at the top of the cliff. They all turned to Rainbow Dash and said something that Pinkie couldn’t hear. Soon after, Rainbow Dash jumped off the cliff and chased after Pinkie, attempting to save her.
But, as Rainbow Dash tried to flap her wings, they were no longer there. They had disappeared, and in their place were two bloody stubs of bone. Rainbow Dash shrieked and tears formed in her eyes, streaming down her face and seeming to float upward as she fell increasingly fast down the cliff.
Pinkie Pie felt something on her back. A new, different feeling. She turned to examine her back, and saw two, bright blue pegasus wings on her back, blood, sinew and bones sticking out in different places. Pinkie Pie tried flapping them, and she felt herself fall slower, even lift up a little. She smiled and flapped her new, stolen wings, flying up high, Rainbow Dash falling down right past her, her high-pitched screams echoing in Pinkie’s ears.
Pinkie continued to flap her wings, and she looked down as Rainbow Dash crashed into the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. Her blood and guts splattering over a series of rocks and boulders. Her eye balls popping out of their sockets and rolling out onto the ground. Even the gray, colorless, squishy pieces of her brain, easily visible against the colorful pallet of her bright red blood and cyan coat, the pink of her innards.
Pinkie stared down at the body as she listened to her friends scream and cry from above her at the edge of the cliff. The fragile rock snapped beneath them, and they all fell down as well. Even Fluttershy, also a pegasus, couldn’t bring herself to fly away, fly to safety, even save one of her friends; her wings were clinging tightly to her side, her legs flailing in the air, her face frozen in fear and sadness, tears streaming down her face.
Pinkie floated in the air as she watched each of her friends fall down the cliff, screaming at her to help them, save them. But Pinkie could do nothing, just watch. Her other friends were just inches from hitting the ground when Pinkie’s dream filled with blackness and she opened her eyes, bolting up in her bed, holding back a scream.
She was covered in sweat, her mane, tail and coat sticking to her uncomfortably. Her breath was rapid, frantic even. She looked around her room, saw Gummy sitting in the same place Pinkie had put him in when she had crawled into her bed earlier. The glass of milk that she hadn’t quite finished that she had left on her bedside table had disappeared.
Pinkie caught her breath, wiped the sweat from her brow and pushed her hair out of her face. Then she slowly got out of her bed and she walked over to the bathroom. She sighed again, the memory of her dream still haunting her. She was expecting the voice in her head, Pinkamena, to speak up, to tell her what to do, what the dream meant.
When the voice said nothing, Pinkie turned on the water and started running a bath. She squeezed in bubbles and waiting for the hot water to fill up. She sat down on the toiletㅡthe seat was closedㅡand closed her eyes in thought.
“That was an interesting dream, wasn’t it?” Pinkamena asked after a few minutes of silence.
“Yeah, it was. Do you know what it means?” Pinkie Pie asked the voice, opening her eyes. She saw that the tub was full and she turned off the water. She hopped into the tub, waiting for Pinkamena to respond to her.
“Sometimes dreams can tell the future.” Pinkamena said. “And sometimes they just show what you fear most. Sometimes they show what you want to happen.” She answered to Pinkie Pie.
Pinkie took in what Pinkamena was saying. She lowered herself further into the steamy, hot water until everything below her eyes was submerged. She sat like that for a moment, holding her breath. When she could breath no longer, she came up, taking a deep breath.
Pinkie thought about her dream, not saying anything to Pinkamena, and Pinkamena said nothing back to her. Pinkie Pie thought that maybe now would be a good time to go on a walk. She got out of the bath, without washing, without draining the water, without drying off. She walked out of her room, down the stairs and out of Sugarcube Corner, leaving sloppy, wet hoof prints as she did so.
She walked through Ponyville, the town seemed deserted, desolate, lonely. The darkness was overwhelming. Pinkie Pie could hardly see where she was walking. She looked up at the sky instead, watching the stars twinkle, surrounding the moon. Pinkie silently thanked Princess Luna for her lovely night and for raising the moon as she walked on in the darkness and in the silence.
Without realizing where she was going, Pinkie walked into the Everfree Forest. She soon found herself headed towards the old castle of the royal sisters. A sudden déjà vu moment struck in her head, but she ignored it and continued walking alone in the darkness.
As Pinkie walked, she noticed her mane start to dry off. Though, when it dried, it didn’t spring up into its usual happy, bouncy, cheerful, playful curls. It remained straight, and bland. She ignored it, but continued to brush her mane out of her face every few minutes, but otherwise she ignored it completely.
She found herself standing by the cliff. On the other side was the castle of the royal sisters. To her right was the bridge that allowed her to cross over to the other side, and on her left was the staircase that led down the the tree of harmony. She looked down off the edge of the cliff, and, just like in her dream, it seemed endless, just a never-ending pit of blackness, darkness.
There were rocks at the bottom, and for a moment, she imagined Rainbow Dash’s dead body lying on the ground. The blood, the organs. The ways her eyes had rolled out of her sockets. Pinkie took a jumpy step backwards, away from the edge of the cliff.
“Pinkie Pie?” Pinkie heard a voice call for her from some distance away. She looked up, and followed her ears to where the voice came from. She saw Twilight standing on the other side of the pit, her saddlebag full of old, dusty books and dark circles under her eyes.
“T-Twilight?” Pinkie asked, her voice sounding a little tired and caked with sadness and depression.
“What are you doing here?” They asked at the same time. Twilight chuckled. She trotted across the rickety old bridge over the bottomless pit towards Pinkie. For one, terrifying moment, Pinkie Pie thought the bridge was going to break underneath Twilight and all the heavy books she was carrying.
Twilight crossed the bridge safely, and Pinkie released a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. Twilight walked over to Pinkie. “What are you doing here?” She asked again. She must have thought Pinkie Pie would want an answer, because then she continued. “I was doing some late night studying, and I grabbed a few books from the old library to take home and reread.” Twilight explained.
“I umm….” Pinkie tried to think of a way to explain what she was doing here.
“You were just going on a walk.” Pinkamena told her.
“I was just out on a walk.” Pinkie said, trying to make her lie believable.
“In the middle of the night?” Twilight examined Pinkie’s slightly wet coat, mane and tail and at the small puddle of water beneath her. “After a bath?”
“Y-yes.” Pinkie said, giving Twilight her best fake smile.
“Why don’t you demonstrate to her what you’re really doing here?” Pinkamena asked Pinkie Pie.
“What would that be?” Pinkie asked, alerting Twilight.
“Excuse me?” Twilight asked, a confused look on her face.
Pinkie thought quickly to try and cover up for the awkwardness. “Wh-what book is that?” She asked, pointing her hoof at a random book sticking out of Twilight’s bag.
“Oh!” Twilight smiled widely and used her magic to pull out the book, and started explaining what the book was about and what she was going to use it to study for, the large smile never leaving her face, her eyes shining happily as she explained.
Pinkie Pie, however, didn’t listen. She waited for Pinkamena to respond to her question. “You were going to fly, remember?” Pinkamena said, reminding Pinkie about what they had talked about and about her awful dream. “You can fly without wings. All you have to do is jump. See if you can make it to the other side.” Pinkamena said. Pinkie Pie could almost imagine the smile on Pinkamena's face as she said this. Her lips stretching from ear to ear, her eyes narrowed.
Pinkie Pie gulped. "Are you sure I can fly? Even without wings?" She asked Pinkamena in her thoughts, hoping she didn't have to speak out loud for Pinkamena to hear her or to answer her.
"Of course." Pinkamena answered.
Pinkie Pie waited for Twilight to finish her talk about her book, and then she spoke up. “Twilight.” She said.
“Yes?” Twilight asked, putting her book away.
“I lied about what I was doing here.”
“Oh.” Twilight said, a little disappointed that one of her friends had lied to her, and Pinkie of all ponies. But she quickly brightened up. “Well, then what are you doing here?” She asked again.
“I’m going to fly.” Pinkie Pie said simply.
“But, Pinkie Pie, you can’t fly.” Twilight said, starting to get a little worried, her eyebrows creasing together.
“But I can. Watch.” Pinkie Pie said, taking a step closer to the cliff. She took a deep breath and looked down.
Before Twilight could move any closer to Pinkie or say anything to stop her, Pinkie Pie leaped off the cliff, hovering in the air for no more than a millisecond before falling down into the darkness, just like in her dream. She willed herself to fly, to use her invisible wings and save herself, but nothing happened. She just continued to fall down and down.
“Pinkie Pie! What are you thinking?! You can’t fly!” Twilight screamed into the bottomless pit after Pinkie Pie, standing at the edge of the cliff, staring down at her friend who was falling to her death.
Pinkie Pie’s dream flashed in her head, about Rainbow Dash’s wings appearing on her back, saving her, and about the rest of her friends falling in after her. She just wanted to be able to fly.
As she was falling, her life flashed in her head, and she realized that this was the closest she was ever going to get to flying if she lived, and if she didn’t…..
Twilight screamed down at Pinkie Pie frantically, wishing she knew some spell that could help her. As Pinkie got closer and closer to the bottom of the cliff, Twilight was freaking out even more, and when the reality that her friends wasn’t going to make itㅡthat Pinkie was going to dieㅡfinally settled in her head, she nearly jumped off the cliff after her in a final attempt to save her.
She gasped and turned away when Pinkie hit the bottom of the cliff. Her life evaporated into nothing as it was ripped away from her. Her body splattered across the bottom of the cliff, just like Rainbow Dash had in her dream. Only, this wasn’t a dream. It was real.
Twilight glanced down and then screamed at the sight of Pinkie’s dead body lying at the bottom of a cliff in the Everfree Forest. She threw off her saddlebag and immediately began galloping back to Ponyville.
