Pinkie Pie paced nervously around the floor of her bedroom. Balloons, streamers, confetti and cupcakes… none of them were cheering her up like they normally would.
The empty seats around the table—five, plus her own—were a depressing reminder of just how alone she was right now.
She stared at those empty seats, willing the tears she could feel coming to disappear.
Smiles and happiness, that was what she was supposed to be about. Not this… negative nastiness that was curling around her heart.
Maybe she should be alone, maybe that would be better… better for everypony.
A loud crash from behind her alerted Pinkie Pie to the fact she was no longer alone in her room. For a moment, her heart swelled, both with joy… and a little fear.
Rainbow Dash laid splayed across the table, covered from head to hoof in icing and cake. She got to her hooves and shook the icing off, reminding Pinkie very much of Winona after a bath. It gave Pinkie Pie a much needed laugh.
“Sorry about the roof, Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash said as she turned, Pinkie Pie noticing the slight blush on her face Rainbow had tried to hide. “Didn’t quite have that trick right.”
“Well, I’m sure cakes are softer than books for crashing,” Pinkie Pie giggled.
“Yeah, tell me about it! Twilight’s castle ain’t as soft as the Golden Oaks was.” Dash chuckled. “Last time I crashed into Twilight’s new library, I had “the saurus” embossed on my butt… which was totally cool, up until Twilight told me it wasn’t about dinosaurs.” Rainbow Dash looked around. “Huh, you planning a surprise party, Pinkie? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Pinkie Pie giggled. “It wouldn’t be a surprise party if I told you, would it?”
“Uhh, yes?” Rainbow Dash replied.
“And it’s not a surprise party. I was just… trying to cheer myself up.”
“Pinkie Pie needs cheering up?” Rainbow Dash laughed. “Now I’ve heard everything! Why didn’t you come to me, I would have helped cheer you up. I’d never leave a friend hanging!”
“Oh,” Pinkie Pie said, her shoulders slumping. “I didn’t want to bother anypony, I’ve just been a little lonely.”
“Huh? The Cakes still away?” Rainbow replied, before shoving a cupcake in her mouth.
Pinkie Pie nodded.
“Eh, I’m sure they’ll be back soon,” Rainbow said, as she sat down at the table. “In the meantime, I’ll join ya! I’ll regale you with tales of my awesomeness!”
Pinkie Pie sat down, directly across from Dash. “Thanks, Dashie. I should have know I could count on you.”
“Sho,” Dash said as she crammed a pastry in her mouth, “I waf talkin’ wif Spiffire about my applicafon, an’ she saif I shoulf sfarf to gef in some flighf roufines soon.”
“Oh, wow! That’s great, Dashie!”
“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash replied, wiping the icing away with the back of her fetlock. “I mean, it’ll suck if I have to start going on tour as just a stand in—”
“You’re leaving?” Pinkie Pie asked, wide eyed.
“Uhh, yeah. On tour. It’ll only be a few months a year, though.” Dash wrinkled her nose, and sneezed. “Ugh, stupid icing, shouldn’ta inhaled it.”
Rainbow wiped her muzzle again, then held her fetlock in front of her face.
“Blood? I didn’t think I’d hurt myself that bad.”
“No no no no no no,” Pinkie shrieked as she jumped out of her chair and rounded the table to Dash.
“Eh, it’s all good, Pinkie, I’ll just bandage it an—”
The world went dark, as an empty chair collided with the back of Rainbow’s skull.
Rainbow Dash awoke, her head throbbing.
“Ugh, did anyone get the name of that cart?”
She tried to raise her hoof to rub her head, but found it bound.
“Uhhh, what the hay?”
The room around her was dark and dank, smelling of fresh earth. A quiet sobbing in the dark alerted Rainbow to the fact she wasn’t alone.
“Hello? Pinkie? You there?” she called out, her voice quavering with something that was definitely not nerves. “You got me, haha. Pretty funny prank.”
The sobbing only got louder.
“Hey, come on, Pinks… untie me,” Rainbow chuckled. “This chair is like, super uncomfortable to sit on.”
She snapped her neck to the right as she felt something move behind her.
“Pinkie, this is ridiculous. You got your laugh, haha, and you pulled one over old Dash.” The quaver in Rainbows voice grew, and she failed to keep her pitch from rising. “So come on, let me go.”
A match sparked next to her, and Rainbow could finally see Pinkie Pie. Pinkie’s tears continued to flow as she lit a candle on a small table next to Rainbow.
“What the hay, Pinkie?” Rainbow yelped.
“I didn’t… I didn’t think you’d wake up… I didn’t know what to do.”
Rainbow Dash surveyed the room. She recognised it as the basement of Sugarcube Corner; Pinkie had hosted a few Nightmare Night parties down here. Rainbow remembered the room being creepy then, what with the fake ghosts hanging from strings, spider webs and all sorts of creepy paraphernalia.
But those nights were nothing compared to the understated dread the room was currently exuding. Somepony had dug up the stone floor, the pick axe used left in the corner. Four mounds of raw dirt sat in a row before her. A single, empty hole had been dug next to the fourth mound.
Five small chunks of flagstone sat at the top of each.
Pinkie Pie sat next to Rainbow staring at the four mounds, dirt and grime covering her from head to hoof.
“Pinkie…” Rainbow Dash said, with absolutely no terror in her voice, “What’s going on?”
“It was an accident,” Pinkie said flatly. Her voice had so little emotion, that Rainbow Dash could hear the family resemblance with Maud. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“W-w-what didn’t you mean to happen?” Rainbow asked.
“I was in the kitchen, cooking with Mr. Cake,” Pinkie replied. “He had me chopping some ginger for the carrot cake he was making. It’s his specialty, you know?
“But when he came over to get the ginger, he slipped on some icing… and fell onto the knife.”
Rainbow Dash paled.
“I tried to stop the bleeding, but I must have nicked the carotid artery. Dashie, it wouldn’t stop! He was coughing and crying and bleeding. Then Mrs. Cake came in, and saw what had happened. She wanted to get help… but they wouldn’t help me, Dashie. Not again.
“So I stopped her. I picked up one of Mr. Cakes super special non-stick frying pans, and I… I stopped her. She wasn’t going to let them take me away. Not again, Dashie, not again.”
“Who? What do you mean, again?” Dash asked, uncertain if she wanted the answer.
“The men from the hospital,” Pinkie replied. “I was making pastries with Granny Pie, and… and there was this thing… that came into the house. It landed on Granny Pie’s head, and I thought it was going to hurt her. So I hit it.”
“That’s how I knew… how I knew that a heavy frying pan could be used to knock somepony out. I didn’t mean to, and the thing had flown away by the time Mom and Dad found us…”
“You know, I actually saw your sonic rainboom from my room in the hospital.” Pinkie Pie shook her head, allowing a small smile to creep onto her face… the first Rainbow had seen since she’d woken up down here. But as quick as it had appeared, it had also disappeared. “I’d never seen anything so colourful in my life! Shining through the window, it filled me with such an unknown joy.
“That’s why they let me out. They thought I had turned a corner. I was happier, I hadn’t tried to hurt myself, or anyone, for a long time.”
“I’ve come so far; but Mrs. Cake…” Pinkie Pie’s expression turned into a scowl. “Mrs. Cake was going to take it all away from me. Take me away again. Away from my friends and family and all the things that make me happy!
“Trying to take it all away!” Pinkie screamed as she thrust her face towards Rainbow’s.
“No one’s trying to take you away, Pinkie,” Rainbow said, letting out a nervous chuckle. “I’m sure she just wanted you to get some help.”
“She wasn’t going to help me.” Pinkie Pie’s expression fell flat again. “That’s why I had to… had to do what I did.
“I wrote to Maud, you know, asking her for help,” she explained. “Maud understood that when it happened last time it was an accident, so I thought, well…”
As she motioned to the third mound, Rainbow Dash felt bile rise up in her throat.
“B-but, she’s your sister!” Rainbow yelled. “You love her! How could you—”
“She wanted to call the guard. She said I needed help, but I could see she was angry. She was so mad! It was as plain as the frown on her face!” Pinkie screamed, shaking the chair. “She was supposed to help me, supposed to… fix this. But she didn’t! She was just going to call the guards and leave me!
“So I hit her over the back of the head with a chunk of flagstone.” Pinkie sniffled, then started chuckling. “Pa always said they’d be the death of her!”
“Pinkie?”
“Yes, Rainbow?”
“Who… who’s in the other grave?”
“Finally accepting that they are graves?” Pinkie Pie smiled as they stared at the mounds.
“Who’s in there, Pinkie?” Rainbow choked.
Sadness fell upon Pinkie, her whole body drooped as she looked towards the fourth mound.
“When I had dealt with Mr. and Mrs. Cake, I tried to look after Pound and Pumpkin. I’ve looked after them before, you know,” Pinkie said, staring blankly. “I tried to play with them, and sing songs, and tell jokes… but they just kept crying for their mom and dad. I realised, well, I know what it is like to lose somepony close, what that does to a pony on the inside. It was a mercy, really. A pillow over their faces while they were sleeping was all it took.
“They were so small, sleeping together. Small enough that I was able to get them at the same time.” A smile flitted across the corners of Pinkie’s mouth, and her eyes watered. “And now they’re sleeping, together forever.”
Rainbow finally lost the battle with her nausea.
“Pinkie, please,” Rainbow said, coughing over the burn in her throat. “You don’t want to do this. Let me go, we can get you help.”
Rainbow Dash wilted under Pinkie Pie’s stare.
“You don’t want to help, you’re just like them, you just want them to take me away.”
“That’s not true, Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow argued. “You need help. I promise I won’t leave you.”
Pinkie Pie scoffed, glowering at Rainbow Dash.
“I really promise. Cross my heart and hope to fly,” Rainbow screamed as Pinkie Pie approached, “stick a cupcake in my eye!”
The darkness in Pinkie’s eyes lifted.
“You… you really mean it? You wouldn’t leave me?”
“Pinkie Promise,” Rainbow replied. “I’ll stay with you, get you the help you need.”
Rainbow flinched as Pinkie wrapped her arms around her in a bone-crushing hug.
“Oh Dashie, I should never had mistrusted you. You wielded the element of loyalty, for pony’s sake!” She shook her head. “Silly Pinkie, of course you’d never betray me!”
Pinkie Pie gently undid one of the straps, letting Rainbow’s left hoof free.
“Y’all down there, Pinkie?” A light and a voice from the top of the staircase interrupted the pair.
Pinkie rammed the rope she had just untied from Rainbow into Rainbow’s mouth. The pegasus gagged on the coarse rope in her mouth. She watched in horror as Pinkie Pie slunk into the darkness.
“Uhhh, Ah’m here t’ deliver the apples, Pinkie,” Applejack called out as she descended the stairs. “Th’ door were unlocked, but no pony’s around.”
Rainbow Dash couldn’t bear to look at Applejack as she beheld her.
“What in tarnation—”
Rainbow Dash looked away as her hooves brought the shovel breaking over Applejack’s back. Applejack fell to the floor and rolled with a start.
Please, Pinkie! Not Applejack too!
Pinkie lept forward, continuing to swing the shovel towards the other earth pony.
Run, Applejack, RUN!
Applejack rolled to the side, and landing a kick so powerful into Pinkie’s side Rainbow felt it. The pink mare was staggered as she crashed into the wall, giving Applejack ample time to gallop up the stairs.
“No no no no no no!” Pinkie screamed as she got back to her hooves. “No!”
Run, Applejack! Get the guards! Help me!
“No no no no no,” Pinkie muttered as she trotted back over to Rainbow Dash. “It’s all falling apart, Dashie, it’s all falling apart again!” Pinkie undid the other knots holding Rainbow Dash to the chair. “We have to run… we’ll go where they’ll never find us. Just me and you, Dashie. You’ll come with me, won’t you?”
Numb, but finally free, Rainbow slumped forward onto the pink mare, pulling her into a hug on the earthen floor.
“No, we can’t run, Pinkie,” Rainbow whispered. “I promised you I wouldn’t leave you, but we can’t run.” She motioned to the graves. “We have to stay, you have to deal with this. I’ll never leave you, but you have to promise me, Pinkie, you have to promise me you’ll try to get better.”
Pinkie wiped a tear from her eye.
“You promise?”
“Cross my heart, hope to fly,” the pegasus replied.
“I won’t fight them, then. I’ll wait here.”
Pinkie laid on the ground next to Rainbow.
They sat in silence and darkness again, waiting for the guard.
“I’m scared, Dashie,” Pinkie whispered. “I don’t want to go away.”
“You won’t be gone long, Pinkie,” Rainbow replied. “We just need help. I’ll be waiting when you get better, I promise.”
Pinkie said nothing as the unicorn guards pinned her to the ground with their magic.
She said nothing as Twilight descended the stairs, a look of betrayal on her face.
She said nothing as Twilight ordered the guards to take her away.
She said nothing as they took her away, and the only sounds that could be heard was Twilight’s sobbing below.
