Author's note: This is directly related to the Demon of laughs story. If you are not aware of what this canon is, I recommend you read Demon of laughs before reading any subsequent Pinkie Pie stories relating to this version of the character.
It was a rainy day in the city of the eternal day. The sun was obscured by overcasting black cloud so thick, that not even the silver light of the evening sun could filter through. As far as the horizon, all was in darkness. And in the darkness the Goddess gave no blessing. No light to tell the time of day, no magic to live out daily lives and nothing to scare away the fiends of the night.
But it was necessary. The surrounding land needed to be watered. Without this much needed moisture crops couldn't grow and ponies would be left thirsty. The city of Celestia, in the throes of famine and drought, would merely cease to function and the rest of the empire would then be left to the mercies of war. For weeks now the city had been without a proper supply of water for far too long, and with more and more pegusii going out to join the campaigns, the weather ponies left could do little until their return. Now in such dire straits, many pegusii had been recalled from military duty by royal decree. Now working like mad ponies, they battled to alleviate the need of the masses below.
And so it rained, for days on end in it's steady trickle of torrential rainfall. None stop it went, right into the late hours of the day. And on a particular time like this, a certain household was having yet another restless evening. Thunder rolled, rain pitter pattered and screams rang out. In a godless evening like this, the house of the Fire family was having a foal born that day.
The noble house of the great Commander general Star Fire had for so many years attempted for an heir. Having loved and lost and loved again he felt the throes of his weary life weigh upon him. He had carved a great legacy in his wake and the great deeds he had done had revolutionised modern warefare. However as it was, he would just be a name amongst many. Many a pony in this day and age were heroes, dying and fighting in the call of duty with such valour and chivalry that they were numberless to comprehend. He needed someone to remember him when he was gone. A being that existed to live as his legacy, rather than something as abstract as a meagre forgettable memory. A mere footnote or statistic in the grand tapestry of history would simply not suffice.
His line was continuing, the thought of that made his wings flutter with anticipation. With just that thought alone he could die content. But to his joy he had so much more. A loving wife, money, title, reputation and soon to be a happy home with the pitter-patter of tiny hoofs. If the goddess was willing, he would live a comfortable life of hearth and home-to live out the rest of his days putting the horrors of war behind him. The grim battlefield, a distant foreign memory.
He paced. Back and forth he went in front of two grand oaken doors. He fidgeted his wings flapping and folding every so often. Was the baby healthy? Was it strong? Was it a he or she, a unicorn or pegasus? His fiery mane stiffened at the sound of his wife's screaming. They were increasing in intervals accompanied with the sound of heavy paced breathing. The pain she must be in. It, it doesn't sound natural thought the general. But the mid-wife spoke concise instructions, her voice oozing with cool and calm. Things were fine. The mid-wife is the best in the city. admonished Star fire. If she didn't sound worried then then things should be fine.
Looking to a distant window he could see his own reflect with each flash of lightning Worry had written his features. It was to such an extent that he would hazard the thought, that they would scar his face into a permanent scowl. The powerlessness! Damn this powerlessness! he thought as he paced, hooves stamping, back and forth flinching to every scream, every roll of thunder that intruded upon the pitter-patter of millions of little raindrops.
Every single chime of each new hour, he paced.
-
His wife screamed louder than she had before, longer and mightier in fact. And then silence. The rain had stopped and the sun had come out to welcome a new morning. The old pegasus was kneeling, now rising from his prayers. He stood before the great doors that barred his way, staring into nothingness. There he was upon the wonderment of a new day. It was as if he'd come into a whole new world as the world of noise died into nothingness. Golden sunlight filtered through the windows, into a nervous silence, the kind that made a nervous Star fire. That is until the reassuring cry of a newborn foal rang out. Not being able to hold the anticipation any longer Star fire burst through the doors.
What he found was a scene of horror.
When he entered the room, in one deft moment he realised everything he held dear was gone.
The smell of bile and faeces and rank meat stank the air. Sprawled on a long flat table was simple white sheet stained with speckles of blood. Dripping and trickling off the table, was a stream of the offensive red liquid that pooled and spread across the expanse of the room. His hoof squelching and sucking against the stained floor Star fire made towards the table. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and he occasionally held back the urges to gag and sob. Somewhere in that shattered mind of his, he held some sort of deluded hope. But as a hardened soldier of so many years, he could never in all his years forget the smell of death in the air.
With his mouth he grabbed onto the dirty white sheet, the iron tang of blood on his tongue forcing a whimper out of his flaring nostrils. Slowly at first he pulled, feeling and hearing the tearing and stickiness as the thing under the sheet refused to part with it's veil. And then something in him couldn't deny anymore. The wait was much too torturous to endure. He closed his eyes and tugged at the sheet, pulling with such force as to throw the sheet to the floor. It stained red completely in seconds. The smell in the air intensified like a wave of heat had slapped across his face, watering his closed eyes with stinging salty tears. Hesitantly his eyes opened. And there she was.
His wife had been horribly mutilated. Her stomach ripped open. Her eyes ripped out from their sockets, leaving only the nerve tissue hanging out to clue in on what was their before. Her limbs were in several awkward angles with more joints than a pony should have. Star fire pawed his wife, hoof quivering at the sight. Precariously he touched his wife, as if hoping to merely phase through an illusion. But nay, this was indeed the feel of a dead pony. He shook the corpse uselessly, swearing for all his worth that this was a terrible dream, that at any moment she would wake up and... his thoughts stopped there. His only inclination was to let the sobbing flow out.
He let himself have that moment of weakness, to cry like the foal of his worth as a husband and let all that despair flow out. To his own disappointment he didn't have as much tears as he had thought. No hours of lovelorn mourning or desire to scream out to the heavens. Within a few minutes, he, to the horror unto himself, felt calm and cold and endlessly grim. With his delicate touch he felt bones and sinew rattle inside the sack of meat that use to be the love of his life. Slowly and with solemnity he began to put his wife into a more dignified posture. Wincing at every squelch of the way. As of yet, he refused another bout of tears.
His task done he knelt in front of the table and just stayed there. Why? It was the only thought he could form. Sobriety came all at once as the reality dawned on him fully. And he heart-breakingly knew it was useless to want things undone. But why!? Screaming his anguish inside he reached out to the heavens and prayed. To the sun at first and then to the moon, whoever would listen. Be they demons or goddesses, he wanted to know why they would do this to him.
Everything remained silent, but for the outrage he was feeling. Fear had made way for sorrow, which in turn made way for soul numbing despair. His tears flowed down his check and rained droplets on the pooling blood that strove to surround him. That beautiful mare of his, his magical little unicorn was gone.
-
He stifled another sob and let all of his emotion well. He closed his eyes as he felt it build. And with a hoarse rage-filled voice, he screamed an animal's scream as he bashed the floor with his hooves. Then in his rage he let his attentions go to everything that stood. Every chair and table and vase and statue and pot and cupboard and shelf. Nothing was spared until everything was in splinters and debris. Dejected he looked down and hid in his arms to sob some more.
-
And then he heard a giggling. A foal's giggle. My child!. Quick as a whip he raised his head to follow the sound. There stood on top of his wife's chest, he found the source of the sound. He jumped back at the sight he saw.
"Congratulations Star fire, it's a Pinkie." The little filly, his little filly, was in the arms of one who dressed the way the mid-wife had. She was pink all over with a curly mane and big round eyes. She was making funny faces at the little foal of which it giggled maniacally in reaction. His eyes went wide with horror and while sprawled on his back he scuttled backwards to the opposite side of the room where Pinkie Pie stood.
"You... but you're an old mare's tale! You can't be real." Pinkie Pie looked up from the filly she held and grinned widely at the father.
"Okie dokie lokie!" she replied.
Pinkie Pie placed the little filly in the gaping hole that was once the home of the little thing. In reaction it merely closed it's eyes to go to sleep as if by some silent command. Satisfied Pinkie Pie turned. Covered in blood and gore Pinkie walked on two legs towards the stallion, all the while pointing accusing fore-hoofs to where it was pertinent. "All this is just a bad dream. This child never existed. This child is not gifted with the colour pink and I am not in this room." Now up close to the Commander general Pinkie gave special care to speak her next words.
"But your wife is most definitely dead." Pinkie giggled at these words. "Dead dead dead! Dead as can be.This mare is no more! It has ceased to be! She's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late mare! She's a stiff! Bereft of life, She rests in peace! She's pushing up the daisies! She's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-WIFE!!"
Pinkie laughed maniacally bouncing out and about in song and dance.
"Shut up!" Star fire was having none of it. In his rage he rushed at the pink mare. He put a hoof to her throat, and pressed her hard against the wall. He looked at her and glared, eyes blood shot with worry and grief and rage. The kind that would haunt any pony for the rest of their lives. But demons knew no fear.
"Go on, my love. Do it." The filly had awoken and started crying out loud. As if Pinkie felt nothing but pleasure, she grinned and moaned as Star fire made to crush her wind pipe. This only made the child scream out even more, choking with pain as the little foal struggled to breathe.
"You sadistic monster."
"I know!" Pinkie sang and delicately moved the offending hoof away from her. She began to turn her attention towards the filly and made to walk towards it. But a round smack to the face had her smashing against the wall.
"You will not touch my child." Star fire scrambled across the room and went to hold his filly. He looked to the foal for injuries from his regrettably impulsive bout of anger, but he found that she was completely fine. Thank the goddess he thought. But then their eyes met. The foal looking at him with a sort of disturbing malign intelligence. Instinctively he recoiled at the way it looked at him, but he soon gathered himself enough to hold the filly close to him protectively.
"Dada" The little creature giggled and Star fire couldn't resist a kind fatherly smile in reply. And then it vanished again, as he heard a rattle of debris from around where Pinkie fell. But she wasn't there.
"This is our child, Star fire. She has my colours, your eyes and mane and nothing from her." Pinkie Pie had somehow appeared behind him. The way she emphasised how the mother of his child meant nothing in the equation brought his rage to its limit. With a mighty buck to the face, the pink mare's skull caved and splattered against the wall. The foal in his arms laughed in reaction.
"What... no." He had intended to turn round and scream profanities at the corpse. But what he saw silenced his breath and churned his stomach. He could not mistake his wife for all the world. That white coat and orange mane. Her cutie mark was unmistakable. He had caved the skull of his wife. Looking around trails of blood and birth fluids were everywhere "Pinkie" had been. And the corpse on the table had changed into that of the mid-wife.
The pink filly giggled at every funny face her daddy made. Star fire could see it all too clearly. Seeing only the sadistic smile of Pinkie Pie behind his daughter's giggling face, he couldn't help but scream at the child.
"Shut up!"
"Shut up!"
"Shut up!"
"Shut up!"
"Shut up!"
"Shut up!"
"Shut up!"
"Shut up!"
And then everything was silent.
