Author's Note
Inspired by a comment chain on Reddit, with /u/Aidinthel. Cover image by Beavernator on Deviantart; used with permission.
I make no apologies, except to disclaim the characters and setting (and the song lyrics in italics) to Hasbro, who set things up for this oh so much...
Ascending
"... and so I want to throw a PARTY!!! now that Cranky and Matilda are together! But they just want to be left alone together, so I can't make a party, but I'm stuffed so full of happiness I could fill a whole libraryfull of it, and so I came here so I could at least tell the two of you!"
Twilight's smile thickened, and she let out what was probably a sigh of relief. (Pinkie couldn't tell why; had Twilight been afraid of something?) "That's great, Pinkie."
"Sure," Rainbow Dash said, looking up from reading Daring Do and the Sapphire Stone for what Pinkie knew was the seventh time. Unless you counted the twenty-two times she'd dipped into the last chapter - that chapter was really super double exciting, even Pinkie had to agree.
"Oh! Then do you have any other reason for a party?"
"Well..." Twilight looked down at the thick book in front of her, and then at a small chest that she'd brought out while Pinkie had been trying to apologize to Cranky Doodle. "Princess Celestia finally let me bring the Elements of Harmony here from Canterlot to study them, and I'm setting up for an analysis spell right now. So if I manage to figure anything out, we could -"
"Yes!" Pinkie jumped into midair, through where the wall of the library suddenly wasn't, and then back again as the wall reformed now that it'd let her pass. (Twilight glanced at her, shook her head, and went back to the book, lighting up her horn.) "I could throw a Twilight-Figures-Out-Harmony-And-Friendship party! That's almost as good as a Cranky-And-Matilda-Are-Special-Somedonkies party! And I can invite Cranky and Matilda anyway - oh, if they want to come -"
At that moment, Twilight cast the spell she'd been charging. It went straight through the chest to where Pinkie could sense the Elements of Harmony were. But then Magic, Loyalty, and Laughter glowed pink, and they threw back the spell, right at Pinkie! Pinkie dived straight into that beam of magic - after all, it was part Laughter, and Laughter was a happy thing, wasn't it? But then the magic went all funny, and not funny in a normal-funny sense, but a super-double-special-magic funny. The library went blue and pink around Pinkie, and for just a moment, her head felt like all the rocks on her family's farm had landed right on top of her and she couldn't pronk away...
Dark gray, like the fields of boulders...
A swath of pink, like the dawn rushing across the sky...
Stars, like Twilight's cutie mark, or like Luna's mane...
"Hello? Princess Luna? Twilight?" Pinkie tapped at where a wall wasn't. Her Pinkie Sense wasn't telling her anything about where she was, so she'd given it her happiest guess. "Did Twilight's spell put me to sleep or something? That'd be Magic, sure, and it might lead to some Laughter, but it's a really lame joke! And you know what happens with lame ponies - they kill the joke!"
There wasn't any response, except that the music she'd been hearing in the background seemed to be picking up tempo. And her back and forehead were itching a really-super-amazing-itching itch that her Pinkie Sense had never felt before.
Another pony floated into the star-filled pinkness next to her. It wasn't teleportation; it was -
"Princess Celestia!" Pinkie jumped over to give her a great big hug. "You've learned to slip between the frames too!"
Pinkie craned her neck around to see that the princess's eyes were as wide as doughnuts (and the really big doughnuts, too, the nearly cake-sized ones that Applejack had said felt like a whole dinner.)
"Or... not? Is this a dream and you've taken over dreamwalking duties from Princess Luna? Oh, don't tell me that's what's happened; that's what leads to Nightmare Moons!"
"Harmony forbid!" Celestia exclaimed reflexively.
"Good news! It has forbidden it! As long as you both keep listening to Harmony!"
"You're Laughter indeed..." Celestia said, almost meditatively.
Pinkie slipped out of the hug (she didn't break it; she'd never break a hug!) and looked up at the princess questioningly.
"Congratulations."
Pinkie jumped. "What? Congratulations? You mean you've been watching Cranky Doodle and Matilda too? Or is it for playing with the Cake twins? Or -"
"For everything." Celestia touched Pinkie's shoulder. "For embodying the magic of friendship more than, perhaps, any other pony in all Equestria."
"I - I try to be a good friend..." Pinkie stammered, her mane starting to uncurl. "But... I almost ruined everything with Cranky Doodle today, until I realized that you don't get everyone to smile in anything near the same way..."
"And that, I think, is why we're here today."
Pinkie perked up.
"You have learned one more valuable lesson about friendship, and you have been surrounded with magic from the Elements of Harmony - in fact, I was hoping for this when I allowed Twilight to take them to Ponyville to study. You have proven you are ready, Pinkie."
"Ready? To throw one more even bigger party with you here too?"
"Even more." Celestia spread her wings and soared up; Pinkie jumped up to join her. (It was even easier to walk in midair here, wherever it was, than in Ponyville!)
"You've come such a long, long way,
And I've watched you from that very first day..."
Windows appeared in midair. Pinkie could see herself hugging her father, the Sonic Rainboom, her first party she'd thrown for her family, her meeting the Cakes...
"To see how you might grow,
To see what you might do,
To see what you've been through..."
...then her giggling at the ghosties in the Everfree, all the Elements healing Black Snooty into Princess Luna...
"To find what you will be,
For it's time for you to fulfill your destiny!"
"But I already have my destiny!"
Pinkie jumped on top of a window showing both the Cakes' foals sleeping on top of her, and glared down at the Princess. The itching in her back was whisking at triple-speed now. "I've got everything now! Being the premier perfect party pony in all Ponyville!"
Celestia shook her head. "Nay, Pinkie Pie. Your destiny is even more than that. You are going to be a Princess."
Pinkie's eyes went so big they popped right out of her head. "The Princess of Parties!"
"Of Friendship, perhaps?"
"Princess of Laughter! Of Friendship! Of Parties!" Confetti leaped from her mane as she shoved her eyes back in and jumped down and all around Celestia. "I can plan a party for all Canterlot! Fillydelphia! Manehattan! All Equestria! Every day! Six times a day!"
"Or..."
Pinkie skidded to a stop. "Or?"
"Or... there are certain things that come with being a Princess."
Pinkie rubbed her mane a moment, and then a candle lit up over her head. "You're right. If a Princess was chasing after Cranky Doodle this morning, it really wouldn't have gone well. Or if a Princess was greeting ponies at Sugarcube Corner, or popping out of ponies' fireplaces..." Tears started to geyser from her eyes, washing away the candle. "Will I need to move to Canterlot? Can I at least say good-bye to all eight hundred seventy-nine of my best friends?"
"You can still live in Ponyville, Pinkie. Everything is going to be just fine!"
"Oh, goody! I love to see my friends' smiles!"
Celestia reached out her hoof to lift up Pinkie's muzzle. "Of course. And you'll get to write good laws and help guard everypony in Equestria so that they can all smile."
Pinkie screwed up her mouth like she was tasting the sourest lemon candy ever. "Wow, that seems really screwy-loosey-complicated! Like feeding grass to a cow and then trying to eat it afterwards! Can't we just go make ponies smile ourselves, right now, with all our super princessey powers?"
Celestia gave Pinkie a look that seemed to read of, "Your idea is so Pinkie-like that I don't know what to say."
"Um... didn't you like when we tried to make the Grand Galloping Gala even more grand and galloping?"
"Yes, but..." Celestia seemed to chew on her lip for a minute. "I did not do that myself."
"Then if you don't want to do that, maybe..." Pinkie's mane poofed up and flowed out like a Princess's. "Me and Princess Luna! Or me and Princess Cadance! We can be Pink Princess Playtime Pals!"
Celestia gave her a look rather like the one that Pinkie had given to the Cakes' foals, but Pinkie continued. "Can I talk with them? Please? Please oh please oh please please please -"
"Yes."
"Please - oh!" Pinkie jumped up higher than she ever had before. "Thank you thank you!"
"I'll bring them right here. One moment, please - and do stay around here."
"How far -"
Before Pinkie could finish her question, Celestia had vanished. After just a moment of disappointment, Pinkie sprang up. There were some things she wanted to do with a wall of pictures of her life.
Just as Pinkie had finished counting the grains of salt she'd added to the apple cake for Twilight's first Welcome-To-Ponyville party (she'd never managed to get a cake to taste quite the same way anymore; it might have been more herself than the cake, but she might as well give the recipe a fair chance now that she had a perfect pegusus's-eye view) - just then, Celestia popped back into wherever this was.
"Hey, Princess -"
Pinkie stopped. Luna and Cadance were both beside Celestia, with somewhat shocked expressions.
"- uh, Princesses!"
"Salutations," Luna intoned.
"Hello," Cadance said.
"Hey, Cadance!" Pinkie bounded up to the pink princess. "You heard? You heard? We're going to be Pink Princess Pals! And we're going to spread smiles all across Equestria!"
Cadance's mouth dropped open. "We - we are? Auntie told me you were going to be a Princess, but I've got plans -"
"Plans?" Pinkie stared at her with wide eyes. "Plans more important than PARTIES?"
"There's going to be a party, and you can plan it of course, but -"
"YAY!" Pinkie sprang up but suddenly stopped midair. "But - only one?"
Luna suddenly drummed her hooves. There still didn't seem to be any floor, but they still made a drumming sound. "I beg thy pardon, Princess Pinkamena, but thy plans lack the requisite Royal Dignity."
"Uh... dignity?" Pinkie looked from Luna to Cadance to Celestia, the latter two of whom suddenly wore somewhat regretful looks... a little like when she'd invited Marble and Limestone to their fifth party in a row. "But... I thought you liked parties?"
"Of course," said Cadance with a completely real smile. "But there're other things a Princess has to do, too."
"Forsooth, one must rule the Realm, and defend it alike."
"Well, you can just leave that ruling and defending and law-writing to other ponies!" Pinkie sprang up onto Luna's back, to the princess's shock. "I'm a Party Pony, and I'm going to make ponies smile!"
Luna bucked Pinkie off with a single practiced rear. "And when thou dost romp with foals on Nightmare Night, and scream in terror at imagined foes - how wilt thy subjects respond when a Princess doth such?"
Pinkie stared at Luna. "R-r-really?"
Celestia stepped by Luna's side. "Or, remember when I came to Sugarcube Corner. Remember everypony's reaction?"
"Th-they were all looking at you..." Pinkie sank to the floor as her hair started uncurling. "And I can't have that. I wouldn't be a good Party Pony if everyone was thinking about me all the time; I need to be thinking about them."
Celestia gave her a smile with the warmth of a lovely sunny day. "Sometimes we all wish it could be like that, Pinkie."
"Then..." Pinkie's hair gathered itself back, and she sprang up. "Then I'm returning my Princessiness right back! No alicorn, no princess, just a Party Pony! Um -" She paused, sticking her head around Cadance's withers. "I can do that, right?"
Luna looked at the other two princesses. "It is good we are all here."
Cadance nodded. "It's her choice, and she knows what she's doing. I mean, more than I did at the time."
"Yep!" Pinkie sat down in-between them with a bright smile. "I like my life just the way it is right now!"
"Indeed." Celestia gave a nod. "Then let it be. Let it be shown in the records of the Royal Windows that Pinkie has mastered the magic of Friendship, but let her still remain an Earth Pony."
Cymbols crashed, before Pinkie quickly slid them back into her mane.
"So... what'll happen to her now that she isn't going to be a Princess?" Cadance asked curiously. "I didn't know you could stop the process mid-ascension... at least, not safely."
"Yea, Pinkamena shall return to the Material Realm with great charges of magic in her, necessitating the prompt aid of mages to preserve her body."
"Oh!" Pinkie brightened up. "Lots of magic in me? I can deal with that! No problem!"
Luna and Cadance both looked at Celestia. Celestia slowly nodded, and Luna frowned. "If ye are certain on that... I shall return unto mine own bed. Until moonrise, sister?"
"Until sunset, sister."
After a momentary crossing of necks, Luna vanished, and Cadance with her.
"Ooh!" Pinkie jumped up. "Where'd Princess Cadance go? I've got so many questions to ask her, about that party she mentioned, and about where she's been the last months! My Pinkie Sense's telling me it's going to be longer than I think before I see her again -"
"I can't really tell you," Celestia interrupted with a secretive smile.
"Oh! It's a secret! No problem; my lips are zipped!" And, for a moment, they were. "Now, let's get me back to Ponyville lickety-split!"
Twilight and Rainbow Dash were still staring at the scorch mark Pinkie had left on the library floor. Rainbow had been staring all along; Twilight had been staring ever since her last desperate attempt to recover Pinkie had failed.
"Okay... okay... it'll be fine... I just tell Mr. and Mrs. Cake... and write to Princess Celestia that I've lost one of my friends and it's all my fault..."
"Twilight! Twilight!" Rainbow Dash grabbed her in her wings. "It's fine! The magic was from the Elements of Harmony, so it can't be bad, right?"
"But Pinkie's vanished -" Twilight snuggled into Dash's wings, still hyperventilating.
"She's Pinkie Pie! She'll be -"
Three glowing balloons, tied together, suddenly appeared in the sky over Ponyville. They sailed swiftly through the library window, as Rainbow Dash and Twilight stared. And then, in a flash of light, they vanished, and -
- Pinkie Pie stood there grinning!
"Pinkie!" Twilight and Rainbow Dash both sprang toward their friend. They met in midair in one big group hug.
"What happened to you!?" Twilight gasped. "Are you all right? Did my magic do anything -"
"Oh, come on." Dash shook her head. "She was just being Pinkie Pie. Right?"
Pinkie cocked her head weirdly for a moment, but then she gave them the biggest smile they'd ever seen from her. "Yeppieyeppie! That's exactly what I was doing! And I'm going to keep right on being Pinkie Pie for every milliminute as long as I can!"
