A Shilling for your Thoughts
It was another beautiful afternoon in Ponyville. The sun was shining and the little ponies were enjoying the warmth of Celestia's sun. The earth pony Pinkie Pie was humming to herself merrily as she skipped towards her friend Twilight's castle. As usual, she was having a wonderful day. She had gotten to make (and sample) several delicious desserts at her job, not to mention all the friends she'd gotten to stop and talk to as she walked through town.
"La, la-la-la-la!"
The castle doors opened outwards mere moments before her arrival. A purple unicorn-turned-alicorn walked out into the sun. She quickly spotted her pink friend and trotted over at a casual pace.
"Hello Pinkie Pie," she said once they were close enough to stop and talk.
The cotton-candy haired pony smiled widely. "Hi-ya Twilight! Spike mentioned to me earlier, when he was at SugarCube Corner, that you were looking for me."
Twilight nodded. "That's correct." She'd been wanting to speak to her bubbly friend all day, in fact. There was something she had noticed about Pinkie Pie lately that concerned her.
"Did you want to hang out? Now that Maud's settled in comfortably, I definitely have time for fun!"
"Not exactly," the purple pony answered. "It's funny, actually, that you should mention Maud; she's what I wanted to talk to you about."
All of a sudden it was like a switch had been turned on in Pinkie's brain. "Maud! Did you say Maud? I love Maud! Isn't she the greatest? Not to mention smart, funny, creative, athletic--"
"Yeah, okay Pinkie," Twilight interrupted. "I get the point." She rolled her eyes. "That's kind of what I'm talking about."
Pinkie tilted her head to the side. "What's what you're talking about?"
"Well…" Twilight cleared her throat. "Ever since you first introduced the girls and I to Maud, I've noticed something unusual about your behavior. I didn't think much of it at first, but it seems to keep popping up every time we run into Maud. The more attention I paid to it, the more obvious it became. I even asked Rarity about it when she returned from her trip to Manehattan, the one where you and Maud accompanied her, and she admitted to noticing the same thing."
Pinkie Pie looked at her friend quizzically. "Umm…Twilight, you're confusing me. Just tell me: was I doing something wrong?"
"Not wrong per se, just unusual," Twilight bit her lip. "Troubling. Even concerning. You see I've noticed that whenever Maud is around or when she gets brought up in a conversation, you tend to compliment her incessantly, excessively." The purple pony didn't noticed, but in that brief second Pinkie's eyes widened, her constant smile tightened, her teeth clenched and a line of sweat ran down her face. A moment later she shook it off and Twilight was none the wiser.
"C-Compliment?" Pinkie inquired. "Silly Twilight, I compliment all of my--"
"But not to the same degree," the alicorn interrupted. "I don't think anyone would disagree that you like handing out compliments Pinkie; being nice is just part of who you are. You compliment your friends and you compliment your family all the time. But that's the thing, you do it, and then it's over with. You move on." Here Twilight began pacing back and forth as it helped her concentrate. Pinkie's eyes followed her left and right.
"But that's not the case with Maud. Whenever Maud is around, you compliment her endlessly…"
"But that's only because Maud is so great!" The pink pony hopped up and down. "She's the best sister ever! There's nothing she can't do!"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "There we go around, you're proving my point. You can't seem to go five seconds without reminding anyone in the general vicinity how 'amazing' she is."
Pinkie stopped hopping. "And what's wrong with that? I love Maud! There's nothing wrong with complimenting her!"
"No…" Twilight said. "But I don't understand why Maud is singled out for this treatment. You have two other sisters and two parents, all of whom love you equally, but you don't treat them like that. You have five of the best friends any pony could want, but you don't act like that to them. So I can't help it, it's the scientist in me that has to know Pinkie: why Maud?"
Pinkie Pie looked tense; her hooves twitched, her eyes darted back and forth and her hair seemed to have lost a little of its shine. "I-I don't know what to tell you Twilight, I just really love my sister! That's all there is to it." She tried to give a smile, but it was frail and sad compared to its normal radiance.
"No, that can't be all it is," Twilight shook her head. She gazed seriously at her friend, causing Pinkie to become even more nervous. Multiple lines of sweat dripped down her face.
"Sorry Twilight, don't know what to tell you," she shrugged in an exaggerated fashion. "Well sorry-got to go-bye!" All of a sudden she rushed off, leaving a trail of dust behind that stung Twilight's eyes and got caught in her throat. For a moment the alicorn just stood there coughing; she could hardly imagine her friend's unusual reaction. Of course Pinkie Pie was already unusual by pony standards, but after knowing her for so long it became fairly predictable. Twilight couldn't understand what part of her question had upset the earth pony so. Had she stumbled onto something personal? Should she just let it go and leave the mystery unsolved?
Nah, not her style.
Instead Twilight teleported after her friend. She found herself in an empty field a solid mile away from the castle. "Pinkie! Why did you leave?"
But Pinkie's only response was to let out a surprised scream. "Gah!" Once again she was off, but Twilight wasn't letting her get away so easily.
The purple pony teleported after the earth pony to find herself in another location, and then another. Each time Pinkie Pie was less surprised and more worn out. Finally, on the sixth teleport, the pink pony greeted Twilight's appearance by collapsing onto the hard ground. "No more!" she begged. "Please stop, Twilight!"
"Pinkie!" The alicorn frowned. She too, was beginning to tire from their game of cat and mouse. "Why do you keep running away?"
"Because!" Several stress lines covered the pink pony's face and her hair began to deflate. "I'm not supposed to tell you! They'd be so mad!"
"They?" The statement had been so vague as to be frustrating, yet at the same time it was a clue that reignited Twilight's interest. "Who is 'they', Pinkie?"
Realizing her mistake, the pink pony covered her mouth with her two front hooves. "Nopony! Forget I said anything! It was nopony!"
"Was it your family? Is this some Pie family secret?"
"No, nothing like that. Now please, stop asking!"
"Is this the result of a Pinkie-promise?"
"Twilight!" Pinkie moaned. "No more!"
"It's not, is it?" Twilight reasoned. "Then I demand you tell me, Pinkie Pie. I'm your friend, if there's a problem, I can help!"
"No!"
"Pinkie!"
"Nooooo…."
"Pinkie…"
"But Twilight…"
"Pinkie…!"
"Okay okay!" Pinkie began to wail, slamming her front hooves on the ground in front of her. "I give up! It's the voices, okay? The voices in my head made me say those things about Maud!"
"The…voices?" Twilight found herself momentarily stunned by her friend's reply. She couldn't decide whether she should believe her, or find her a nice room in a mental hospital. There was also the possibility this whole thing was some elaborate prank and any moment now Rainbow Dash would fly out of a cloud yelling "gotcha!". But a quick scan of the sky was surprisingly pegasus-free. Her curiosity told her to just go with it for now. "What voices?"
"The ones that speak to me inside my head," Pinkie answered. "Sometimes they're there, sometimes not. They tell me to do things, say things sometimes. If I don't want to do what they tell me, they threaten me, our friends, all of Equestria even. They say if I don't do what they tell me, everything I know could disappear."
"W-What?" Twilight sputtered out. She could hardly believe what Pinkie was telling her. In fact, she didn't really believe it. Could Pinkie finally be having some kind of mental breakdown? "Well, who are these voices? What do they call themselves?"
"They never gave me a name, but sometimes…" Pinkie paused. "Just sometimes, when they think I can't hear them, they talk to each other, and I listen. They call themselves 'the writers' and they believe they control everything in Equestria." She shuddered. "They scare me, Twilight. They scare me."
"I'm sorry Pinkie," the purple pony placed her hoof on top of her friend's shoulder. "But are you telling me these 'writers' told you to compliment Maud?"
Pinkie nodded. "They wouldn't tell me why, they just insisted I compliment her endlessly and tell everyone how great she is whenever she's around or when someone talks about her. I didn't mind at first because she's my sister, but it got old after a while. Then one day, I heard them talking again. They were talking about how they were afraid no one was going to like Maud and that's why they forced me to talk about how great she is. Then they said they wanted me to do it more often so people would forget she's defined by a single characteristic and instead think she was interesting." Pinkie paused, and then shrugged. "Whatever that means. Anyway, I'm really worried what they'll make me do next, Twilight."
"Hmm…" The librarian pondered her friend's words. She loved Pinkie Pie, but wondered whether she'd finally cracked. She wanted to believe her, but maybe the smarter option was to have her looked at, just in case. "Alright Pinkie, I think you should come with me back to the castle. I'll run some tests and see if there's any magical residue on you," she lied. "It's possible some rogue unicorn may have cast a dark spell on you that's being triggered by Maud's appearance."
Pinkie Pie nodded wearily, "okay Twilight, if you think that’s best." They both began to walk back to town, heading in the direction of the castle. "I've sure got a LOT to tell you. These meanies made me do and say a lot of stuff, but I also learned a few of their secrets. If I could just--"
Twilight's head swerved around when her friend stopped speaking in the middle of her sentence. Pinkie Pie's mouth was agape, still stuck in the middle of her sentence. "OH CELESTIA!" she suddenly screamed out loud. Her eyes popped open and enlarged. Twilight was so surprised by Pinkie's sudden outburst, she backed away in fear. "NO PLEASE! I didn't mean it! I wasn't going to tell!"
"Pinkie? What's wrong?" Twilight asked, genuinely worried. "What can I do?"
"NO! I'll be good! I promise!" Suddenly the pink pony slammed her head down onto the ground repeatedly. She looked up, her face white as chalk. "Run Twilight! RUN!"
Twilight rushed forward to help. "PINKIE!"
There was a poof, and the next second Pinkie was gone, as if she had used her classic pinkie-sense powers to disappear. "Pinkie?" Twilight attempted to teleport herself to her friend's side, but to no avail. Nothing happened. "Why isn't this working? Oh no, poor Pinkie Pie…"
Twilight ran back into Ponyville, screaming her friend's name and searching up and down, high and low. "Have you seen Pinkie Pie?" She asked ponies at random. "Have you seen Pinkie Pie?" But no one ever answered her. Instead they just gave her blank looks.
Exhausted and very afraid, Twilight found momentarily relief when she spotted Applejack standing near her apple stand in the middle of town. "Oh Applejack!" she ran over to the farmer pony. "I'm so glad to have found you! There's trouble, big trouble! Pinkie Pie is missing. I think something bad may have happened. We've got to find her!"
Applejack cocked her head to the side and gave the librarian a quizzical look. "Pinkie Pie? Well, who's that Twilight?"
"W-Wha--What do you mean?" she sputtered. "I said Pinkie Pie! Pin-kie-Pie!"
"I heard you," the element of honesty nodded. "Is she new to town? I guess I haven't met her yet."
"HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW HER?" Twilight screamed. "She's one of our best friends!"
But screaming didn't help at all. Applejack seemed just as oblivious as before. Twilight asked a few more ponies. Rainbow dash didn't know who she was, nor did the Cakes, the mayor or even Spike.
An hour later Twilight hid behind the back of her castle, resting. She was breathing hard and could not manage to relax. "It just doesn't make any sense," she spoke to herself. "It's as if…as if everyone forgot who Pinkie Pie was. Or worse…" the purple pony gulped. "As if she just doesn't exist anymore!"
Suddenly she heard the sound of distant laughter.
"Who's there?" she looked around, but the area was empty. There was no pony else around.
Hello Twilight, a voice spoke to her. The alicorn felt her insides freeze when she realized it was coming from inside her own head. It's nice to meet you. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind doing us a little favor…
What do you think about…Maud Pie?
