Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Chapters

Overture
About to Crash
War Inside My Head
Goodnight Kiss
Solitary Shell
About to Crash (Reprise) [part I]
About to Crash (Reprise) [part II]
About to Crash (Reprise) [part III]
The Test That Stumped Them All
Losing Time / Grand Finale

Overture

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

By Dilectus Noctis

Special thanks to my proofreaders/editors: chasethebrony and Rainbowsoldier94

Disclaimer: I do not own the My Little Pony Friendship is Magic franchise, Hasbro does. The song Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence belongs to Dream Theater.

OVERTURE

The morning came as always, the sky was clear, providing a good day to be outside enjoying the cool wind of spring with your beloved ones or even alone.

But to one pony, this day was just like any other. A day not to be celebrated in any way, just another 24 hours to suffer through. This mare was lying on its couch, carelessly watching the hours pass by.

Her thoughts were scattered and unfocused. She had lived everything that society said a mare would ever need. She had kids, a husband that cared for her, she supposedly had everything.

After the time passed on, she grew tired of having her thoughts flitter from memory to memory. All the different subjects and stresses of times past began to weigh heavily on her heart yet again.

So, she walked to her desk and began to set out the instruments to ease her mind. She removed a quill, an ink bottle and several pieces of paper and sat down at her writing table.

She held the quill with her magic and dove it in the ink, trying to create the first sentences in her head but nothing seemed to outstand in her hazy mind. It was as if the words that she had just decided to put down into the paper had disappeared, leaving no traces to her.

‘Come on… I know I can do it’

Then the words began to flow.

I don’t know exactly why I am writing, and I don’t know if anypony will actually read this anyways. Either way, I need to get these thoughts off my mind. They weigh down my spirit and I don't know how much more I can take...

First of all, my name is Rarity. Ponies describe me as a white coated, purple-maned unicorn. I have three diamonds as my cutie mark, though I gave up on those dreams long ago.

I also used to be a tailor, and even one of the legendary Elements of Harmony. But like all good things, it all came to an end years ago. I can’t deny that I had some good times throughout my life. I had some wonderful friends… but one by one they went away, faded into only memories. No, they’re not dead... they’re just somewhere else, far away from me and my life…

Rarity finished the last sentence with a melancholy sigh. She looked through the open window at the beautiful day outside. To any other pony it would be absolutely perfect, but not to her.

She sighed and looked back on her writing. The words were plainly filled with sorrow and tinged with regret. The ellipsis at the end of her last sentence almost begging for her to continue writing.

‘Why am I doing this anyway?’ she thought while vacantly staring at the off-white ceiling wondering if it was going to give her any answers.

She looked back to the paper, trying to sort her feelings to be able to continue her writing.

“Yes, now I think know why I am writing this. Maybe it’s just better to write all of you down onto this paper, so that I don’t have to keep it in my mind any longer…” she whispered to herself.

Rarity had reached the point of no return; once she wrote down these memories, maybe her family could begin to understand what was wrong with her. After all her years of happiness and hardships, what’s better to give to your family than your own memories?

And so she began to write once more...

About to Crash

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Special thanks to my proofreaders/editors: chasethebrony and Rainbowsoldier94

ABOUT TO CRASH

I clearly remember the day twenty years ago when the changeling Queen Chrysalis and her army invaded Canterlot. The most important wedding in centuries was almost tragically ruined. But against all odds, the wedding between Princess Cadance and Shining Armor continued and the invaders were banished off the land of Equestria.

We thought that everything was returning to normal in Equestria, and my friends and I all went back to our normal lives.

After performing the Sonic Rainboom at the wedding, Rainbow Dash returned home even more excited to continue her training for an upcoming Wonderbolts audition. She was training so hard every day, and we, as her friends, gave her all the support we could.

Our lives continued as usual, with everypony taking care of their own problems and of course, we always had our little get-togethers: a lunch, spa date, sleepovers and etc… and we were very anxious to see Rainbow’s performance at the audition.

Two weeks before the event, Rainbow had intensified her training to a whole new level. She started missing out get-togethers more frequently, but we understood that her great day was coming and she needed to train.

The day finally arrived, everypony was there to watch the open audition and everypony knew that Rainbow Dash would be the winner.

But something went wrong with her new trick. While performing a loop, she lost control of her wings and hit the floor. It wasn’t the biggest of her mistakes but the problem is that after she committed it, she got too nervous and failed to perform her “grand finale”. She couldn’t perform the Sonic Rainboom as she had planned and nearly hit one of the judges.

It was clear that she had lost the only chance to realize her lifelong dream.

All of Ponyville was in a gloomy mood for weeks. No one wanted to mention that the pegasus considered to be the best flyer in Equestria had failed in the audition but at the same time, everypony felt bad for her because they knew how much it meant to her.

She only got some bruises from her crash, but the biggest wound was in her heart. She wasn’t showing it to us, but she was deeply depressed. We knew it, but we decided to not to speak of the subject lest we wound her even more.

Eventually everything went back to normal… or so we thought.

Two months after her failure, Rainbow started to be evasive. She uncharacteristically began to neglect her work on the weather patrol. Though it was most unusual, she began to grow distant from her friends.

She began filling every moment of her free time with a real acrobatics at the expense of everything else in her life. Eventually, she was fired from her work due to her constant absence. We tried to talk to her but she always said that she was too busy to talk, or some other excuse. We couldn’t understand why she got so fixated all of a sudden… well actually, we knew why but we refused to believe that it was from the tragic audition. We had promised to each other to never talk about it and we all kept our promises.

I quickly understood that she had become obsessive; her determination to be the best had turned into a disease. Of course, sooner or later she ran out of money so we had to help our friend in any way that we could.

We never managed to make her stop from more than minutes to talk to us. Twilight even tried making a “trap” to make Rainbow talk to us about what was bothering her so much, but in the end they just became fruitless attempts.

One day, her determination made her suffer more than mentally. After all her training, she hadn’t improved anything. On the contrary, training without rest can only cause harm to one’s body and that is exactly what happened. When that day finally came, she managed to shatter both wings while trying to perform a Sonic Rainboom.

She was carried to the hospital for an emergency surgery; the possibility of being never able to fly again was immense. After hours of tension in the waiting room the doctor finally came up and gave the prognosis. Rainbow may never be able to fly again. We were completely shocked; he also told us that even if she managed to fly again, she wouldn’t be able to fly as fast as she was used to.

When Rainbow woke up, we were there by her side. The doctor showed up and told her what she could expect from her recovery and in that moment her world fell completely apart. I never forgot the expression of pain and sorrow on her face.

We tried our best to cheer her up, but we couldn't make any difference at all. For two months we visited her in the hospital, no exceptions; and every day she cried in our hooves.

After two ominous months, Rainbow’s behavior was getting worse; she was cycling between extreme fits of rage, sadness and rare happiness. We knew that it was a clear case of bipolar disorder; the doctors started treating her with antidepressants and other kinds of medicines.

I had never been so worried about her. She saved my life after all, and I felt that I had to return the favor to her somehow; everypony had their lives to take care so eventually they had to reduce their visits to once a week, but I struggled to keep going there every day. I needed to show her that she wasn’t alone in her fight.

It was impossible to know if the medicines would work due to the thousands of different cases of the bipolar disorder, but to our happiness it seemed like it was working. She still had some bad episodes in her behavior but she was learning to control herself well.

Then one day, she was finally released from the hospital. She still had to take the medicines for an undetermined amount of time, but at least she was well enough to be able to take care of herself. The first thing that she did when got out of the hospital was to try to take flight. She tried several times until she managed to hover a few hooves off the ground but her wings were still weak from the bed rest and the healing.

I asked Rainbow if she would like to stay at my home until she recovered, and thankfully she agreed. I couldn’t have been happier to be helping her out.

War Inside My Head

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Special thanks to my proofreaders/editors: chasethebrony and Rainbowsoldier94

WAR INSIDE MY HEAD

Our friendship had eased her pain, but it hadn't healed her scar. Rainbow slowly recovered her ability to fly again. Although it wasn’t as good as it was before the accident, it was enough to get her work back at the weather patrol; albeit as a junior cloud pusher instead of her former position as team leader. She moved back into to her home again and her life began to return to a semblance of normality.

After some weeks, Pinkie surprised us and told us that she was dating a colt. We felt so happy for her, of all of us she was probably the most... interesting to get along with. She kept her date a mystery until she threw him a party; apparently a colt named Mille-Feuille had just moved from Manehattan to Ponyville to open a bakery. Pinkie went over to look at the new competition and ended falling head over hooves in love.

Almost all the habitants of Ponyville were there at the party having a good time, but no members of the Apple Family was there. Normally it wasn't a big deal. Applejack and her family were usually up to their necks with work to be done on the farm. So naturally we just assumed that they were off fixing the barn or something along those lines.

We were wrong. So very wrong.

Nopony was aware of what was happening until the smell of smoke began to spread through Sugar Cube Corner. After searching the store for a fire everypony went outside to try to find the source of the massive cloud that was engulfing Ponyville.

In the dark of the night, a bright haze was glowing off in the distance. I remember tears coming to my eyes when the realization of what was happening hit me. I was about to witness the worst thing that I had ever seen. All the ponies gathered outside also wore the same grievous expression when we realized what was going on.

Sweet Apple Acres was on fire.

The group’s first reaction was to panic. Thankfully Twilight took control of the situation and organized the ponies into two teams, one consisted of unicorns and pegasi to start to extinguish the fire and the earth ponies were to go search for the members of the Apple family.

The first team gathered all the water that they could at the nearby lake and took all the clouds that were in the sky in that moment for an “emergency rain” and sent a messenger off to Cloudsdale for more help.

The second team of pegasi flew off to gather any available clouds for an "emergency rain". The unicorns galloped ahead and began to smother the fires with magic.

The other four girls and I ran to the Apple Family house together while the other earth ponies started searching the orchards. We hadn't found anypony outside, and they weren't in the nearby orchards. The only place left was the burning house.

After about an hour the fire in the house was completely extinguished. Not soon after, a huge group of pegasi arrived from Cloudsdale, bringing a large number of clouds to quickly put out the remaining fire in the orchard.

Nothing much was left untouched from the flames, almost three fourths of the property was down to ashes. The earth ponies reported that nopony was found out in the woods. The barn and the house were blackened; their crumbling frames needed only the slightest breeze to knock them down. However, the only possible place left for the Apples to be was inside them.

Even though she wasn’t at her best shape since her accident, Rainbow Dash flew into the house to look for them. After a couple of minutes she yelled from inside saying that she had found the Apples. Several other pegasi carefully went inside and carried them outside to a nearby glade.

They were tied up with rope and with their mouths were taped shut. We cut their binds as soon as we got them out, but they were too shaken to even talk. The medical team took them off to the Ponyville hospital in case of serious injury. Miraculously, other than some smoke inhalation and minor burns they weren’t hurt at all. But what was most shocking was the expressions of sheer terror on their faces.

A few days passed before Big Macintosh was finally allowed to leave the hospital but by then, everypony knew what had happened. That day, Princess Celestia arrived for a private audience with him and after some hours she came into public and announced what had happened at Sweet Apple Acres and what she was going to do about it.

She told that the Flim Flam Brothers and five other ponies were the source of all that destruction. They invaded the house two hours before Pinkie's party. The Apple family was bound and gagged and left at Applejack’s bedroom while everything was set on fire.

Nopony was in doubt about their motive. After the Cider competition, the Flim Flam brothers had gone into poverty, and eventually had to resort to petty crime to make ends meet.

Princess Celestia decided to open an investigation to confirm the identity of the aggressors and to mete out justice according to Equestrian Law.

Applebloom and Granny Smith got out from the hospital a few weeks later but what left us worried was Applejack. Her physical wounds had already healed over, but she was still mentally distraught.

We visited her as much as we could, though the doctors were forbidding frequent visits due to her abnormal and sometimes aggressive behavior.

She was diagnosed as having a severe case of post-traumatic stress syndrome.

On our rare visits she always said that they were hunting her at night… that they were laughing at her misery. She was scared even of being outside on the rare occasion she was allowed to take a walk around the hospital, even when the doctors were with her. Applejack was always looking behind her and inside rooms and closets in search of something that was chasing her.

Applejack attended several “help groups” to let out her inner demons. She began to take antidepressants and other kinds of mood controlling medicines.

While Applejack was under her intensive treatment, Princess Celestia and the mayor of Ponyville helped find a new house for the Apples to use. What was left of the orchard was being maintained with the help of several citizens, and of course, the girls and I were doing our best to help in any possible way.

Applejack was having some big improvements in her treatment and would soon be allowed to leave the hospital.

The rest of their property was being taken care of, but it would take some time for anything to grow again into the damaged soil but at least everything seemed to be coming back into place. At least it seemed so…

Goodnight Kiss

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Special thanks to my proofreaders/editors: chasethebrony and Rainbowsoldier94

GOODNIGHT KISS

Life consists of a combination of both the good times and the bad. Lately we have been receiving more of the latter than the former. Twilight was still heavily medicated and undergoing therapy in her hospital in Canterlot and we were unable to do anything. Even visiting our friend was difficult as we had our lives to carry on in Ponyville, and traveling to Canterlot even once a week was too expensive for most of us.

If we could we would be by Twilight’s side, but at Princess Celestia's and Luna's recommendation, we kept our distance. Not for a lack of will to visit, but out of duty to our rulers and the doctors.

A week after our visit to Canterlot, I was sitting alone in my living room drinking some tea and trying to fight the ears that seemed to always just be a stray emotion away. Despite all the attempts to lift my mood, I always fell back into a tiresome melancholy. Why wouldn't I? My friend was suffering and I couldn't do anything about it but hope for the best.

Anyway, on this day was when my feelings got the best of me. Somepony knocked on the door, and by the rapid quality of the knocking, I knew exactly who it was: Pinkie Pie.

I opened the door to be greeted by that wide smile, that bouncy pink pony with a small wooden basket balanced precariously on her head.

At the sight of her, my mood improved substantially. It then soared to new levels of happiness when I was passed a card and discovered it to be a wedding invitation.

That day I felt pure joy for the first time in far too long. Not because I had forgotten Twilight, but because of the joy that at least somepony was actually being happy, despite the circumstances.

A week later the day of the wedding arrived. All of Ponyville was crowding around the downtown plaza. Princess Celestia was there to officiate, a big smile on her face and ready to wed the couple.

After the wedding, everything went better than expected. Then when we thought that things couldn't get better for them both, several weeks after their marriage we received news from Pinkie that she was pregnant. I thought that pregnancy would make that pony stop for a while, but it just somehow served to make her even more bouncy.

I confess that I was a little bit jealous. After all, I couldn't find a nice stallion for myself while the pony that I didn’t expect to get married AND pregnant was Pinkie. But of course I was happy for her... a ray of hope began to build in my heart.

The day had come when her baby was born, a beautiful white coated light pink maned earth pony filly with the most beautiful blue eyes that I had ever seen.

That day I discovered how wonderful Pinkie was; no matter what happened to her or to her friends she always faced it with a smile. A wide smile that spread into everypony that was around her. Pinkie is an example of life, even though she may be a little off sometimes but she doesn't mean it. It is her personality after all.

And I was pretty sure of how happy her husband was too. They would surely have a wonderful life together... If only life wasn't so cruel to them...

"Dammit I can't do anything about it!" yelled Rainbow Dash to the cloudy sky, "I can't believe that they sent us the wrong clouds! We were supposed to just get a light shower, but now we may have a flood here in Ponyville and if I go outside to try to change everything now the whole system might destabilize. Aargh!" she hollered while trotting in circles in her bedroom.

Rainbow looked out of her window at the town below and sighed.

“I hope nopony gets hurt” she whispered into the wind.

“Maybe I can go and try to give those ponies some warning.”

Gathering her weather goggles, she then leaped out into the maelstrom.

That afternoon's rain was surely stronger than scheduled. The sky was so dark that it seemed like it was midnight, but Mille-Feuille HAD to go to the post office to get his precious cargo of star-fruits or else his order of cakes would be delayed. If only the mailmare wasn't perpetually late, then he may have recieved them by now.

Pinkie was taking care of the newborn for the moment. So he had to do most of the work in the bakery for the time being. He didn't mind though; after all, Pinkie was being the best mother and wife that he could have ever asked for.

But sometimes being so overworked for so long was getting the best of him. Only sleeping four hours per night wasn't nearly enough and he could feel every hour of lost sleep trying to take control on his way to the post office. But his duty was calling him, forcing him onward. "At least if I finish this quick I'll have plenty of time to sleep". Pinkie was probably upstairs sleeping with the baby. He giggled softly at the thought. Pinkie was always singing to Strawberry Pie as they were going to sleep and he knew how much that filly loved her mom's songs.

He decided to stop stalling and readied himself to head to his destination. He took the spare keys from their hook, his windbreaker, the largest umbrella that he could find, and the receipt for his order.

The sound of thunder was cracking loudly outside, and his stomach tied itself into a small knot. He was getting nervous, but he refused to leave his order to the mercy of the mailmare.

He opened the door with a growing anxiety in his core. he shook his head as he thought, ‘It'll be for just twenty minutes or so, Pinkie is sleeping so she won't even notice... I'll just go as fast as I can though...'

He donned the windbreaker, quickly opened the door, opened his umbrella and locked the door behind him. 'Okay, first step done’. he thought confidently.

The cold rain was pouring down like mad; he was shivering from the freezing raindrops that managed to hit his uncovered face.

The wind was blowing strong and it was getting harder and harder to move.

'Dear Celestia I should had stayed at home... But I’m almost there. There's no turning back now.'

He continued walking down the road to the post office, the massive black clouds were blocking the sunlight almost completely and the heavy rain was forcing him to squint.

He had to pass over a somewhat tall hill to reach the post office. It was surely dangerous in a thunderstorm but it was the shortest way to his destination and if he managed to get there earlier, he could get his pack and head back home in no time.

With this thought in mind and newfound determination, he began his way up the hill, after several minutes he finally reached the top. He stopped for a brief moment to check which direction he was supposed to head to when suddenly everything went to complete darkness... He fell like a stone to the ground, the umbrella, or what was left of it, fell by his side as the rain only intensified more and more.

When Pinkie received the bad news, her world fell down and broke like a crystal ball, being reduced to tiny shards… So small that they couldn't be put together again.

I couldn't understand what was on the mind of that stallion that day to go out in the middle of a storm, walk onto a hill with a metal umbrella and think that he could escape the storm. But while I felt some anger towards him, he just suffered from a lack of judgment and then Pinkie Pie was left alone to take care of both their child AND bakery.

A week after the accident, Pinkie moved back in with her old bosses: the Cakes.

Pumpkin and Pound Cake were already going to school and were old enough to start helping around the shop so there wasn't too much work to be done at the bakery. Either way, Pinkie did what she could to help out, though in truth, it was mostly the Cakes helping out Pinkie.

Of course, life wasn't easy. Having so many ponies in the shop and the increasing costs of materials made them have to cut back on some of their expenses.

Pinkie tried to maintain her old attitude, but she obviously wasn’t the same pony we used to know. She walked now, her love for parties was completely gone, and she was always busy.

Then one day she did the unimaginable. She simply... disappeared.

According to the Cakes, it was around five in the morning when they heard the sound of a door opening. They didn't pay any attention to it but an hour or two later they woke up to find that it was the front door that was open and Pinkie was gone.

After a long time searching for Pinkie, they found nothing. All her things were still in place in the bedroom and her foal was still sleeping. They hoped that she just went out for a walk.

But something surely bothered them. She normally would leave them a note saying when she would leave and return. Hours passed, the foal would wake up soon and Pinkie was nowhere to be found.

I eventually heard the news from Twilight, she was on the verge of tears but she did her best as she told me what happened. She came to my home something around twelve hours after the events that I'm writing about.

Mr. Cake had eventually left Sugarcube Corner in search of Pinkie while Mrs. Cake stayed at home to take care of Pinkie's foal.

After Pinkie has been missing for two days, Princess Celestia was contacted and several search teams were organized and deployed to search for her.

That week was gloomy; the sun hasn't shown through the massive storm clouds that were still covering Ponyville. That week was so gloomy that even the weather was fitting to our mood.

Pinkie was gone and the only reason that I could find to explain why she did that was the most obvious one. She was depressed... And I wasn't blaming her for that, but I think that she made a bad decision by leaving us without even asking for help or advice. And at the same time I understood her because she was always the happiest one of us and when she became depressed, we weren't there to ask her how she was and how we could help her.

I was totally confused and couldn't focus on my work. I kept blaming myself for what had happened even though I knew, in the depths of my heart, that I wasn't guilty... Or I was wrong... I actually don't know.

At that time, all that I knew is that things were still taking a turn for the worst.

Solitary Shell

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Special thanks to my proofreaders/editors: chasethebrony and Rainbowsoldier94

SOLITARY SHELL

Have you ever thought why our life seems to be so harsh on us and we don't even deserve it? It is a mystery in fact, like my life... I was born and raised like a normal pony. I even helped to save the land of Equestria and what life gives me in exchange? Have I done something wrong that I don't remember what?

Sometimes I had blamed myself. I still do it sometimes. I always looked behind to try to understand what I did wrong. And the bigger problem is I can't find what it is... Maybe it is some kind of karma or whatever. I prefer not to think about it.

Let's move on shall we?

Two weeks have passed since Pinkie disappeared. The mood around Ponyville began to sink further into a dark abyss; hope was lost in most of the ponyfolk. The search teams couldn't even find a single trace of where Pinkie was or could be.

The only place left that could be searched was beyond Equestria and even that would be extremely dangerous and difficult to do but Celestia was determined to find the holder of the Element of Laughter.

By the time that the new searches began, I decided to dedicate more of my life to my friends. I know that if we had been there for Pinkie when she lost her beloved husband, she wouldn't have gotten so bad. Since the beginning we knew that she wasn't foalnapped. Even though she was always the happier one of us, she surely felt depressed and left everything behind. She tried to hide her feelings and look what she did... I know that we could have helped her.

In this second week, I noticed how Fluttershy was coldhearted about Pinkie's disappearance. Celestia please have forgiveness of me but, I had doubt that she could have something to do with it. I went to talk to her one day and simply accused the poor thing to be the guilty one and it even made me think that I was right since she didn't even reply in her defense.

I isolated myself in a shell of sadness and even hatred. Hatred towards the life that was punishing me by whatever I had done. I became blind by these thoughts... Little did I know that these feelings could only make everything worse; feeling that way was an easy way to escape the reality and hide the truth.

Was I weak? Indeed, I had understood how selfish I became, hiding in my home every day, working and working and caring less and less about my family and friends.

I was sinking into an ocean of gloominess and wasn't even aware of it, but something brought me back to the surface. I received a letter three weeks after Pinkie's disappearance; the royal seal on the letter brought me instant hope at the moment that the mailmare brought it to my hooves.

I quickly unfolded the letter and read:

Hi, Rarity, believe it or not but it is me, Twilight Sparkle...

At that moment the letter fell from my grasp, I couldn't believe in the words that I was reading. I took deep breaths and brought the letter back into my vision:

Yes, I think that the months in the care of experienced ponies such as the doctors here, I am managing to get back to who I used to be... No medicines are working but they taught me how to sort out my feelings. Through intense therapy I am learning more about myself... I didn't know that my obsession over certain subjects was something abnormal but now I can see.

But what I want to tell you with this letter is to invite you to come here, to Canterlot, with all of our friends if possible (yes, all of them received a letter as well). The Royal Sisters will pay for the trip and you all will stay here at the castle with me, and hopefully, I'll come back with you girls. I expect you all in three days (next Saturday).

Best wishes,

Twilight Sparkle

I found it somewhat weird to see such a regal letter from a friend but I could understand her. She was beginning a new life after all.

I was astonished by the fact that she might be back with us. The overly dedicated pony that is always willing to learn more and more, was learning something that she never expected.

But at the same time, I was really sad to know that Pinkie wouldn’t receive the letter AND that we would need to tell her about our friend's disappearance.

The only thing that I managed to think at that moment was that I needed to see Fluttershy. After all, she was the one that always held so many secrets of mine.

I immediately trotted to Fluttershy's house. When I had arrived I noticed that she had left the door open (am I that predictable?) I entered in a somewhat hasty pace; she was sitting on the couch with Angel by her side and a letter, with the same royal seal as mine, lay on the couch's arm.

"Hello, Rarity..." she said in her usual soft tone. I came closer and noticed a tear in her eye.

"Hi, Flutterhy..." I extended a hoof and wiped the tear that began to fall through her cheek. No words were needed at that moment. She opened her arms and hugged me tightly. I did the same and there we stood in each other's embrace.

"Can you forgive me?" I said.

"Of course..." she answered softly. "We must see the others, hmm?"

Saturday soon arrived. The week passed by as a gust of wind as we all waited for this special day. Our trip was calm, too calm actually. We were happy to be seeing Twilight but Pinkie wasn't with us and that was something to be sad about, after all, that pony was always the turn up of the group.

I'm sure that Rainbow, Applejack, Fluttershy and I were feeling the exact same thing: confusion. Rainbow especially since she was usually very close to Pinkie.

We arrived at Canterlot's train station and were guided by a royal guard to the castle. Arriving at the castle's entrance, Princess Celestia was at the gate waiting for us. She was wearing a grievous expression, an expression that I haven't seen in our princess... Until that day.

"I am glad to see that you all managed to get here, but I am afraid that this visit isn't going to be the happiest one... I haven't told Twilight about Pinkie Pie yet but I think that she's ready..." Celestia said without even raising her head.

Rarity walked in front of the trio and said, "Princess, we can't hide this from her and if you think that she is good enough to receive such news, it is better to say the truth."

This time Rainbow took a step forward and said, "Rarity's right princess, we can't hide this from her..."

Celestia raised her head and wiped a tear even though she was trying her hardest to hide her feelings, "Okay, what you girls think about having lunch then? My sister and Twilight are waiting in the dining hall."

"Sure, why not?" Rarity said.

"Well then, follow me." the princess said as they made their way to the dining hall, a big room with a huge rectangular table; a glass abode was letting the sun bathe the whole place with light.

Everything could he considered perfect if it wasn't for the missing party pony to rant about how beautiful that place was and start planning decorations for a party and so on.

As Celestia said, Luna and Twilight were sitting side by side chatting cheerfully with a smile on their faces. The table was all set with a beautiful decorated table cloth and the utensils all made of a shining silver.

We were a few hooves from the table when Twilight and Luna noticed our arrival. They stopped chatting and both got up from their seats, coming to greet us.

"Hi girls! It's so good to see you all." Twilight beamed excitedly. She came and greeted all of us and when she noticed that Pinkie wasn't with us, she wore a confused expression and asked to us, "Where's Pinkie?"

Dash, AJ, Fluttershy and I looked at each other trying to think of what to say to our friend and before we could come up with something, she continued talking, "Oh I know, I bet that she is hiding somewhere to surprise me with her party cannon or something, right?" she spoke with a growing smile.

"Well umm, actually, Pinkie is..." I tried to say but I couldn’t find the right words. It wouldn't matter how we would say it, the news would make a huge impact on Twilight.

At this moment, Rainbow stepped forward to try to carry on what we were attempting to say, "So Pinkie is not err... I mean..." I saw Twilight beginning to fear what the answer was.

Applejack was even worse, she kept looking side to side to try to find something to say but it proved to be worthless.

At the corner of my eye, I noticed that Luna and Celestia were in the same situation, looking to the floor with sad faces that just contributed to make me even more afraid of the situation. I wanted to run away and never tell Twilight about Pinkie, but we couldn't hide it forever.

The tension in the room was growing to an insane level. The feeling was burning my head and hurting my chest intensely.

"Pinkie has gone missing." an almost inaudible voice came out from our group.

I know that voice really well, but I couldn't believe that of all of us, that shy pegasus was the one who managed to speak of what we were fearing the most.

"W-what?" Twilight asked turning to Fluttershy.

"That's it, I can't hold on anymore! That's what you heard Twilight!" Fluttershy began to burst in tears as she continued speaking between sobs, "Pinkie has gone missing! We weren't decent friends enough to take care of her when she needed it the most. We are the worst friends in the whole world!!!" She yelled and flew away.

Dash was about to go after her but Applejack grabbed her tail. "Let 'er be Rainbow. She needs some time alone..."

"Okay, I’ll just keep track of where she'll go then..."

"All right, just make sure she don't get into any trouble but don't let her see you. Let her alone for a while okay?"

"Right." Rainbow said as she flew away to keep an eye on our friend.

I had completely lost my appetite, and I was pretty sure that everyone had as well. I turned and saw Twilight trembling, I was beginning to fear the worst.

"I... I... can't believe... when did this happened?" she asked trying to control herself.

We told her everything about Pinkie's husband’s death, the tough life that she was having and her sudden disappearance. When we finished, Twilight was making such an expressionless face that I couldn't see if she was angry, sad or both... And I feared this the most.

She then finally spoke after a long silence, "I’ll see you girls later." as she walked towards the door followed by Celestia.

Luna approached us and said "I will guide thee to the dormitory."

We were all in the same dormitory. It was a big room with four beds and chests to place anything that we brought with inside.

The night arrived like a blink of an eye. We all had dinner together, except for Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash but I knew that those two were taking care of each other.

Twilight didn’t say much nor did any of us as well. All we needed was time and that's what we had too much of.

The dark bedroom was the perfect scenery for me at the time, the moonlight bathing me as I watched the other buildings of the Canterlot Castle through the large and beautiful window. In the distance I could see Rainbow and Fluttershy on a rooftop gazing at the stars. I sighed in relief. At least they were fine and Twilight would be as well very soon, I just felt it.

I turned to see Applejack who I thought that would be sleeping but instead was wide awake and looking at me; she noticed that I was rather surprised, "Don't worry ‘bout a thing sugarcube, they'll be fine. Everything’ll be fine... Just give ‘em time."

"Thanks, Applejack..."

About to Crash (Reprise) [part I]

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Special thanks to my proofreaders/editors: chasethebrony and Rainbowsoldier94

ABOUT TO CRASH REPRISE [part I]

It was a rainy morning. The clouds weren't black but they seemed to cover the entire sky like a grey blanket.

I got up and looked to both sides. Rainbow and Fluttershy were on their beds but I couldn't see Applejack. I then headed to the window and pulled the curtain just a little so I could see outside.

The usually bustling city of Canterlot was rather empty; all the ponies were surely in their homes, cozy and warm.

While looking through the window, my mind drifted to another place. It seemed like everything was back to normal. Maybe my mind attempted to hide my feelings of sadness.

The sound of the raindrops hitting the glass was hypnotizing. After all the sort of bad events that had occurred to me, I somehow managed to feel peace.

But it was cut short by somepony opening the door. It was Applejack.

"Good morning Rar'..."

"Good morning..." I almost said the words with a sigh. Applejack noticed how I was feeling and came to me, stood for a while by my side and then hugged me tight.

I was rather surprised by her sudden act; she got me in a fragile moment and I began to cry in her shoulder.

"I know Rarity, I know." She said while passing her hoof across by back, "Everything will be better you'll see..."

"How can you say this Applejack? We can't be sure about this..."

"Just trust me will ya?"

I wasn't sure what I could actually feel at that moment, but I tried my best to feel better. I really tried...

We ate breakfast in silence. But I noticed something, Twilight seemed to be planning something as her eyes kept going here and there through a book that she was reading while eating at the same time. She was focused.

After we all finished our meal, Twilight got up and said with a determined face, "Girls... We're going to find Pinkie!"

The silence still remained between the rest of us; the only thing I managed to do was to look in surprise at Twilight.

"Before you all ask how, I want to say that I will use a special spell to find Pinkie."

"An extremely dangerous spell to be precise." Luna stated.

"What spell? And why is it dangerous?" Rainbow said while getting up from her seat.

"Well you see, this spell makes a pony be able to exit their physical body and travel as a spirit to the past. I can't change what happened but I can see where Pinkie is. But it is very dangerous because if the spell breaks while I am in the past, I may never return to my physical body..."

"Wait, YOU are going Twilight?" Applejack asked.

"I have to. Only a unicorn with good magic control can make this work and one powerful enough to keep the spell going while the other is traveling is completely necessary as well."

Twilight headed towards the dining hall window and looked to the horizon as she continued, "I am okay now girls, I know I can do it and I want to do this no matter what the risks are. Luna and Celestia will be performing the spell, how could anything go wrong?"

I noticed that Celestia was staring at the teacup for a while after Twilight spoke her last sentence. She finally looked up and said, "It's good to know that you trust us Twilight, even though I think that this is a rather precipitated plan..."

"I know I can do it Princess."

"And when are you all going to do this?" I decided to ask.

"As soon as possible." Twilight said.

"Shall we prepare ourselves then?" I heard Luna almost to her sister.

"Yes... Let's get the preparations done."

"I don't know why... But I have a really bad feeling about this..." Fluttershy said in her usual low voice. Those words crept on me, I was soon became worried.

The room was eerily lit; all curtains were closed and the single spot of light was a candle in the middle of the room. Twilight, Luna and Celestia were sitting around the candle and the rest of us in a bigger circle around the three.

"Are you ready, Twilight?" Luna asked.

Twilight nodded, "Let me just explain something for the girls first..."

She got up and turned to us as she said, "This spell is rather complicated, if there is any problem during the spell, the consequences can be... permanent, so don't make any noises or else Luna or Celestia may get distracted..."

We all nodded back to her. She received our message and gave a smile to us while she continued, "Don't worry, I'll be fine."

"We trust you Twilight, you can do it!" Rainbow Dash said.

Twilight's smile widened but soon she turned and sat back in her place. I noticed that her smile faded away but I knew that I could trust my friend, we all knew.

She was going to risk herself once again to save somepony, but that time it was rather different. She was going to save our friend.

"May we start?" Celestia asked Twilight.

"Yes."

Celestia's horn began to glow a faint light that rivaled the candles’ but soon grew into a brighter and brighter sphere of light. Luna done the same and concentrated her magic along with her sister.

Twilight lay down on the cushion where she was previously sitting on, pointed her horn towards the center of the circle that they were forming.

The sisters' horns seemed to reach a peak of the light they were emitting; I watched amazed the yellow and blues lights illuminating the whole room.

"3... 2..." Celestia began counting as she and Luna pointed their horns to Twilight.

"1..." the light that emanated from their horns fired towards Twilight, the sphere of light being absorbed by her. She seemed to feel it hitting her as she grunted slightly but soon relaxed and rested her head on the big cushion.

Darkness. Nothing more than darkness surrounded her. "Where am I?" she questioned herself.

In the middle of the darkness a small white dot appeared in the mysterious place, "Maybe that is..." she couldn't complete her sentence, the small dot lighted the whole empty space, millions of images flashing by Twilight's eyes, millions of memories, events, things that she had never seen. She began focusing on her objective.

"Pinkie Pie, I must... find..." One of the sceneries appeared to glow more than the others. Just then she noticed how weird she was feeling. Her body swiftly floating into nothing was clearly a new experience to her.

The brighter scenery was getting closer to her as she concentrated her thoughts on when and where she needed to appear to be able to see her friend.

Now everywhere that she looked at was white like an empty sheet of paper.

"Twilight..."

The lavender mare concentrated her thoughts on the strange voice. In fact, it wasn't too strange to her at all. "Twilight, it's Celestia who's speaking... I just want to tell you that you must be quick or the spirits that protect this spiritual realm may hunt for you. You are in a totally different dimension so be careful. You can't change what will be appearing before your eyes but your physical body is still here. Please take care Twilight. We have full trust in you."

Those were the last few word she heard until everything went pitch black.

About to Crash (Reprise) [part II]

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Special thanks to my proofreaders/editors: chasethebrony and Rainbowsoldier94

ABOUT TO CRASH REPRISE [part II]

The flash of light finally vanished leaving Twilight confused about what was happening around her. She rubbed her eyes; she was in the middle of Ponyville, the moon was raised high in the beautiful dark violet sky, but... floating? She was startled but quickly remembered what was happening. The spell had worked she was now experiencing a reflection of the past.

"I need to know when I had exited. I hope I didn't pass the right point..." Twilight kept self-arguing when she heard the sound of a door creaking open. She turned and saw Pinkie leaving Sugarcube Corner.

"Dear Celestia.. so this is when..." Twilight’s thoughts faded. She stared directly at her friend but could not recognize her at all; the once happiest pony in all of Equestria now seemed like the saddest one she had ever seen. The lavender mare felt

like crying but she held back her tears and kept watching.

Pinkie closed the door slowly and began trotting probably in the direction of the Everfree Forest.

"I can't believe she headed to the Everfree. The princess said they searched there... Better not lose track of her."

Twilight couldn't believe that the pony in front of her was Pinkie. She had never seen her so crestfallen. Her trotting seemed heavy as if she was carrying a loaded burden, and in fact, she was.

The lavender mare tried to keep her focus or else something could go wrong if she lost her concentration. The connection with the past is extremely weak, and to top it off, she didn’t know how much time left she had to discover Pinkie’s possible whereabouts in the future.

In every way that she thought, she just found problems and was almost starting to regret her choice of traveling to the past. She shook her head slightly to remove any negative thoughts, 'No, I have to do this... For her and for us all.'

As Twilight continued to process her thoughts, Pinkie headed to the Everfree forest at a slow and unhappy pacing.

Pinkie reached the borders of the Everfree, stopped and looked directly to the night sky, probably seeking for any solution to her problems but seemingly in vain.

"I'm sorry everypony... I just hope you all get better, without me upsetting your days..."

"Pinkie!" Twilight couldn't contain herself and shouted her friend's name. But the pink pony didn't hear her. 'She can't hear me, I can't do nothing but watch her here... I must control myself.' Twilight tried to sort her feelings but turned out to be a difficult task.

Now Pinkie was in the woods and Twilight followed her closely. A house emerged from the trees. 'Wait, that's Zecora's house!' Twilight thought, surprised.

Pinkie slowly entered in the zebra's house and closed the door behind her without even looking back; Twilight passed

through the door and saw Pinkie in the living room, the voice of Zecora was coming through from somewhere she couldn't identify.

The zebra appeared from one of the doors of her house, but something was strange. The scenery around her began to lose its color little by little. By this moment, Zecora and Pinkie’s voices became almost inaudible to the point where Twilight couldn’t make out any of the words

"Oh no, the spell is losing its power..." The world continued blurring more and more.

"Damn, I can't go back now... I need to know at least where she headed..."

Everything went black once more...

"NO!" Twilight shouted as she shot up from the cushion she was lying on.

She was panting hard; everything seemed strange, her senses were at their highest and she felt as if she had just woken up from a nightmare.

"Oh no..."

The unicorn looked around and noticed all her friends staring at her with worry on their faces. Princess Celestia and Luna were getting up slowly, surely tired from the complicated spell that they just had performed.

The lavender mare felt her head getting heavy, she lay on the cushion again and as soon as she rested her head on it, she fell asleep.

Twilight had slept until the next morning. That spell surely worn out the poor thing to her bones.

As soon as she had woken up, we all met at the gardens of the castle where we had breakfast. We were all sitting on a big table that was set outside.

We ate our meal in a bothering silence. I was feeling so curious to know about Pinkie. It turned out to be very difficult to contain myself.

But I needed to respect my friend before anything, and patiently, we awaited.

At last, she finished her meal, looked to both princesses that nodded back to her, got up and spoke, "I'm not sure where Pinkie is... Everything was too fast, I expected to stay there more but it wasn't possible..."

Me and the others gasped by what she said.

"BUT, I have a clue. she went to Zecora's house, probably looking for advice so all we have to do is go there and ask her about it."

Well, what other hope could I have at that moment? At least we had somewhere to go, at least we had a clue.

In that same day we went to the Everfree forest on the royal carriage to save us some time. We arrived at Zecora's house by the afternoon. The forest was very calm, just the sound of birds and the soft wind blowing through the trees.

Twilight knocked on the wooden door. It didn't take long for it to be answered. Zecora appeared and noticed all of us there, although she didn't seemed surprised to see even the princesses at her door; the zebra was just giving us a neutral expression.

Twilight as always began speaking first, "Hello Zecora." trying not to look too anxious.

"Well hello there Twilight, I guess you had come to ask for your pink friend by noticing your fright."

"Well I'll go directly to the point then, where's Pinkie?"

"Your friend came to ask for advice because her heart was cold as ice. Please come on in and drink some tea because a lot of things may be explained to thee."

We all entered at Zecora's cottage, even though it was quite small to fit the seven of use we managed to suit ourselves around a circular table where some tea-cups were being placed by our zebra friend.

After some time she came with the tea and served all of us. It was a simple green tea but its fragrance was different. It may have been something that she added to it but it was surely making me feel a little more relaxed.

Twilight didn't waste any time and began speaking again, "Well Zecora you are aware of Pinkie's disappearance, the princesses and I performed a spell where I managed to be for some time in the past and you met with Pinkie but then I couldn't see what happened next as the spell was of extreme risk and hard to maintain." She then thought for a while and proceeded, "I thought I should have come to talk to you first without going through such risks but, well, there was so much going on these past days so..."

"Fear not Twilight, I know that you are passing through a hard time. All I have to ask from you is your trust that soon your friend will return."

"What do you mean Zecora? Do you know or don't know where Pinkie is?" Twilight began to sound impatient at this time and so were we

"I wish I knew my friend, but I'm afraid that I don't know when your worries will have an end. Your friend wanted to find something to set her mind right, and I only knew of one pony... or better one zebra, that could help in her fight."

I noticed Twilight ears perked up as she asked, "Who?"

About to Crash (Reprise) [part III]

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Special thanks to my proofreaders/editors: chasethebrony and Rainbowsoldier94

ABOUT TO CRASH (REPRISE) [part III]

Zecora told us about a place, a place far beyond Ponyville where the Zebra tribes make their home. We had to travel as soon as we could, but it wouldn't be too effective for all of us to go.

Twilight instructed us to tell to the Cake's the news, that Twilight, Zecora and the princesses would be traveling to find Pinkie. I wanted to be able to assure them that Strawberry Pie's mother would surely come back home but it was useless. I had to admit to myself that the future was uncertain.

I couldn't understand why Pinkie left everyone all of a sudden. Maybe she could have talked to someone that she needed help and not leave and let everyone to mourn her disappearance and fear for the worst for her.

Well, we don't know how it is until we experience it, right?

The trip to the San Palomino Desert(*) was silent, the hope in those ponies hearts was feeble but not nonexistent. They decided to travel using the royal carriage so they would have a better view of where the tribe was located. Since there was no other way of transportation except going on hoof it would save a good time to fly.

At last they saw in the distance their destination. Twilight glanced at her mentor, Celestia seemed to have understood the message that her student wished to pass with that look and said, "Have faith Twilight, have faith."

Twilight was surprised by how her teacher could understand her so well. She smiled back and no other word was needed at that moment.

They finally landed on the arid soil; the scenery was quite mysterious to somepony that never traveled to such place. Twilight noticed several sand hills here and there hiding the horizon from her eyes. It was hot there but the strong wind helped cool her body. The sound of the wind running through those same hills was quite hypnotizing to the lavender mare.

She was getting lost in her thoughts when Princess Luna placed her hoof on Twilight's shoulder.

She noticed that there was a couple of zebras right in front of them, talking to each other probably wondering why Celestia and Luna were there. One of the zebras came ahead and bowed, followed by the other Zebras that did the same gesture.

The zebra that took a step ahead, one with special adornments on her head signaling her superiority in the tribe, spoke with a strong accent, "Princesses of the sun and moon, what occasion brings thou to our simple tribe?"

"Greetings chief Helder Son(**) we heard that an earth pony by the name of Pinkie Pie is here in your tribe, is that true?

"Actually, yes Zecora recommended us to help her with her, umm, problem might I say."

Twilight didn’t notice until now that Zecora wasn't exactly with them. She looked around and spotted her, chatting with another group of zebras in a language she couldn't recognize. Maybe this was the tribe from where she came from, since she seemed to be really known here. She paid no further mind to it as she kept listening.

"You see, Pinkie seemed really disturbed about what happened to her. I assure you your highness that we helped her spirit find some peace."

"I understand. Where is she now?"

"Well she's sleeping inside the tent right now. Would you like something to drink? She may be wake anytime soon."

"I think that wouldn't be a problem, we don't want to bother her anyways."

Hearing those words, Twilight never felt such relief, her friend was there AND doing fine. It was almost tempting to go in there herself and wake up Pinkie so she could talk to her friend once again but she wouldn't dare making such an act.

She accompanied the princess inside one of the tents where they sat on a rather rustic kind of tapestry, but it was better than sitting in the sand so she didn't make any further thought of it.

"Would you all like some chamomile tea?" Helder Son asked

"Sure, I think everypony here would like it." Princess Celestia answered.

The zebra served each of them a cup of tea. She served one to herself and sat amongst the other ponies making a circle formation.

"So, about your friend..." Helder Son began as she adjusted herself in a more comfortable position, "Zecora surely done well to recommend her to us, but I just wish she had not left her family like that."

"Well so you knew what she did when she got here?" Twilight interrupted.

"Of course, but that wasn't something to be discussed at the time. Your friend was suffering more than you could imagine." The zebra answered seemed undisturbed with the lavender unicorn’s interruption.

"Well I think there's no need to discuss this, right? Please Helder Son could you tell us about what happened?" Celestia asked.

"Sure, I actually need to tell you so you all can understand her pain. You see, Pinkie told us her story when she arrived here, somehow she traveled on hoof to get here; that day I felt how determined your friend is." She got up as she continued talking, "She came here in the right time. She told us that she didn't want to bother her friends with her problems due to some... err might I say 'events' that happened to your group of friends. She told us her story about her husband and how she left her home to try to find some peace to carry on her life... please forgive her for what she did, it was for a greater good. She needed this time to think."

"I understand..." Twilight said.

"And something that intrigued me a lot is that she actually said that her friends would come looking for her and that it wouldn't take too long for them to find her here, and she was right after all."

"Ah... Pinkie knows of certain things that we'll never understand." Twilight added.

"We would like to thank thee for such good attitudes towards our subject." Luna said.

Celestia glanced at her sister as if she had taken the words from her mouth as she decided to add, "Yes, we would like to thank you for being of great help to one of the saviors of Equestria as well."

"I only did what was right. I assure you that if she comes across any other kind of problem, she will know how to better deal with it from now on. She is pretty active but she understood my lessons on how to meditate and on how to analyze your problems in various perspectives. In the end, she discovered by herself how to take care of any negative thoughts that could come to disturb her sleep."

"Is there anything we could do to return the favor?" Celestia asked.

"That won’t be necessary. She helped us quite a bit here in the tribe so I don't want to put any burden on you; it surely wasn't a problem helping a pony in need."

"Very well then, I think we shall go now, after all, a lot of ponies are expecting her to come back,

I don't want to keep them more anxious than they already are." Celestia stated.

"Sure, I think you should wake her up then, she can have a heavy sleep sometimes, I thought she would wake up soon but well, do what you all have to do and if there are ponies waiting for her, why delay it any linger then right?"

"Indeed." Luna said as she got up followed by her sister and Twilight.

They went to the tent where Pinkie was sleeping. Twilight was the first to enter; after all that she had been through, all that she wanted to see was her friend and there she was despite all her worries nothing bad actually happened to Pinkie at all.

"Pinkie..." Twilight whispered softly while putting her hoof softly onto the pink pony’s shoulder.

"Hmm?" She answered and yawned, still with closed eyes.

"Hey Pinkie..." Twilight insisted.

The pink mare opened her eyes, "T-Twilight?" Pinkie quickly threw her forelegs around Twilight in a tight embrace, "Ooohh Twilight I knew you would come for meeee!"

"Okay Pinkie, j-just let me breathe f-for a while." Twilight said between gasps.

Pinkie noticed how tight she was holding her and eased her grasp.

"Oh much better, hehe." Twilight now returned the hug, holding each other for what seemed like an eternity, "Oh Pinkie there's so much that I need to tell you."

Pinkie giggled softly and said, "Oh I know Twily. We surely have a lot to catch up on. I just want to say that I'm sorry for leaving you all but, I just... didn't want to be a nuisance for you all and well look how good you are now."

"I understand you Pinkie, it's all good now. We're all doing fine. I managed to get better as well as you can see; everything turns out good in the end, right?"

"Well said Twilight." Princess Celestia said as she entered the tent followed by her sister, "So, time to get back home I suppose?"

"Suuure thing!" Pinkie said getting up.

They all got in the carriage after Pinkie said her goodbyes to the habitants of the tribe; they all waved them goodbye as they flew in the carriage back to Ponyville.

Twilight finally found her peace at that moment. A tear formed in her eye, but this time a tear of

joy.

(*) San Palomino Desert can be seen in this map I suppose that would be the land "far away" that Zecora talks about.

(**) Helder Son means "bright sun" in Afrikaner.

The Test That Stumped Them All

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Special thanks to my proofreaders/editors: chasethebrony and Rainbowsoldier94

THE TEST THAT STUMPED THEM ALL

Life isn’t easy for anypony, but sometimes there are unexpected events that can turn even the most outstanding pony into something completely different.

Our friend Twilight Sparkle was no exception. She was the personal student of Princess Celestia herself, and everypony always expected her to be the best… actually, I digress. I will start at the beginning.

Several months after the incident with the Apple Family, Applejack had improved from her mental trauma and was finally allowed to stay at home with her family. After months of therapy, she began to be like the pony that we all used to know.

Almost at the same time that Applejack got out from the hospital, Twilight started to seclude herself into her home, and as ever, we haven’t paid too much attention since she used to do that when she’s studying for something important.

Life went as usual for week or so, but then we really began to notice that we hadn’t seen Twilight in almost a month. We tried to talk to her several times, but she never answered the door. Spike just kept telling us that she was off studying in the basement or something.

She had simply locked herself down there, but we tried to not get worried with her. We all knew that she sometimes had some moments like this, and we expected her to eventually come out jumping in excitement yelling that she finally had found and answer to this or that. However, we had never seen her disappear for this long.

Around this time, Applejack was back into her normal routine of taking care of the farm and her family.

Pinkie was happy with her new coltfriend and spent most of her time with him. I always noticed them bouncing around Ponyville together, always laughing and talking super fast. And judging by the amount of time she spent at his house we began to wonder if we were going to be seeing a wedding invitation soon.

While all this was going on, the onset of fall had brought about another wave of orders from the Boutique leaving me with very little free time. Then, my parents decided to move to Ponyville and that took away any time to myself that I had left.

And finally: Fluttershy… oh Fluttershy, she was the same pony as always, I never had seen any hint of sadness in her beautiful face. Her life stayed the same, despite all the hardships, she ended up being the strongest mare that I had ever seen.

However, whenever life begins to settle down, something new always comes along to upset everything once again.

After a while it became clear that we were becoming more than worried about Twilight. Spike had told us that when he asked about what she was doing for so long in the basement, she had begun to yell at him and get angry.

Not soon after, we began to get REALLY concerned.

I was working on another large order from Fillydelphia, when I heard a frantic knocking at my front door. Opening it, I immediately was hugged by a crying Spike. Looking into his eyes, I could see the pain and strangely fear he was feeling.

After calming him down, I asked him exactly what had happened.

Spike told me that he had gone to the basement with some food, and that when he tried to figure out what she was doing, Twilight had yelled at him and began to telekinetically throw things at him with her magic. He also mentioned that while she was doing it, she was talking to herself as if to reply to an unheard voice.

At that point, I decided to confront Twilight about exactly what was happening. Until now, we had been ok just thinking that she was deep in her studies; but this painted a whole other picture.

Taking Spike with me, I walked over to the library and knocked on the door. After a couple seconds with no reply, I had Spike find the hidden spare key for me.

Entering the main room, I could year yelling coming from the basement. Running over to the basement door, I failed to open the locked door. Spike then pulled out a second key and unlocked this door for me as well.

Descending the stairs, I didn't think anything could have prepared me for what I encountered. Instead of finding blackboards filled with complex mathematic equations and theories, there were nonsensical words written all over the walls; even the ceiling was covered in a hazy and confused writing.

Twilight was sitting at the middle of the room mumbling incoherent words to herself. I walked over and when put my hoof onto her shoulder to comfort her, she turned to me with bloodshot eyes and began to yell.

I remember her screaming at me that something was coming for her and that she needed to stay alone. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening, but her appearance alone showed that she was definitely not in her right mind.

Screaming at me to get out, I ran in fear from the horrific room. Sprinting upstairs, I saw Spike with a sad expression looking at me with red puffy eyes.

His sadness shook me to no end, he was such a nice dragon especially to Twilight… how could she do such horrible things to him? I would have never expected Twilight to act this way towards her number one assistant.

After locking Twilight back into the basement, I sent Spike to gather the rest of our friends.

Once everyone was gathered there, we decided to ask Princess Celestia for help. Spike sent our letter off, and after two hours she teleported to the Library. She had gone ahead and brought Princess Luna along with her, as well as a couple guards.

Princess Celestia trotted down to the basement, and told us to wait for her to return.

After she went down there, we heard Incoherent yells echoing from the basement stairs while we waited. After a couple of minutes, the yelling turned into a calmer and apologetic tone and Princess Celestia returned and told us of the situation. She said that Twilight was having some sort of stress and that she was going to take her back to Canterlot for a couple weeks to let her mind ease.

Twilight came upstairs after Princess Celestia. We couldn’t decide how we were going to approach her. We just stood in silence as she trotted after the Princesses with a crestfallen expression. She didn’t say anything to us until she reached the front door, when she suddenly stopped, turned to us and said: “I’m sorry girls” and then followed the Princesses outside.

We trotted outside and watched them teleport away in complete silence.

We stayed at Twilight’s house that night, comforting Spike and assuaging his worries.

That night we tried not to think about it but to no avail. Twilight had always been a part of the bedrock of our friendship, not having her there made the library feel... empty.

But as always we hoped for the best…

________________________________________

Several weeks had passed by and Princess Celestia sent us information about how Twilight was doing, and to our relief, Twilight sent us a letter herself saying that in two days she would come back to Ponyville.

Of course, once we had gotten word of her return, Pinkie was already organizing a party for Twilight’s comeback and we were more than excited.

Finally, the day had arrived… but Twilight didn’t. The party was all set, the five of us were there and even Pinkie’s coltfriend. And we waited… and waited… we stayed there through the night, but we didn't even receive a letter explaining what happened.

We decided to go ahead and have Spike send a letter to see what was going on, and we soon got a reply.

A rough letter had arrived with hasty writing contained just one phrase: “Twilight is not well...”

I called the girls together for an “emergency” meeting and then discussed what we should do about it. After a short period of deliberation, we quickly decided that we should head to Canterlot to see with our own eyes what was happening to our dearest friend.

We six went by train to Canterlot the next day, and when we arrived some Royal Guards and Shining Armor were there waiting for us. Shining had a sad, worn look, but refused to say anything until we reached the castle.

Upon our arrival, we were greeted by Princess Luna at the entrance gate. From there she guided us inside through several hallways until we reached a wing of the castle where there were many doctors moving about. Guiding us further in, we finally reached an area with three rooms that contained bars across the doors.

Once we saw that the rooms had been barred, we knew that something really bad was happening to Twilight. Luna pointed us to the center room and we peered through the iron bars.

I couldn’t control myself and fell into sobs when I saw Twilight inside an unadorned white room. She was lying on the bed with a pillow pressed to her face mumbling incoherently to herself. Her fur had several contusions and it was matted and stained as if she hasn't taken a bath in weeks.

Princess Luna sadly lead us out of the room and over to a waiting room where we sat across a table from her as she explained the situation.

She said that Twilight was most likely suffering from severe schizophrenia. We thought that our world had been shattered several times before, but this was the worst. Our beloved friend Twilight, the protégé of Princess Celestia, multiple time savior of Equestria, and one of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria, was going insane.

Losing Time / Grand Finale

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Special thanks to my proofreaders/editors: chasethebrony and Rainbowsoldier94

LOSING TIME / GRAND FINALE

"Once I thought that life couldn't get any worse and then everything changes; it is strange how one day you think that everything will stay the same, that nothing will get better, and when that one day comes you see that you were wrong.

How many years have passed? Twenty or more I think. I actually don't know how I feel; I think I just needed to write this to feel better with my own feelings.

I don't even know if somepony will ever read this or if I'll actually leave it when anypony can see after my life reaches an end so...

But in the end you always find that life isn't just good moments, it have its bad moments too, and it is within these particular events that you really learn what and who really matters to you, who will be by your side when you are sick or having any kind of trouble. This is something that we only know when we are in times of trial, where the help others is more than welcome.

I think that's what Celestia managed to teach to all of us six and I was so happy to learn. I know that I can count on my friends, for whatever it takes, that they will be by my side if I need them and they know that if they need me I will be there too.

Sometimes it takes a little while for us discover all this but everything ends fine in the very end. Some friends come and some go but you need to remember, there's always someone that really cares about you..."

She finished writing and closed the small notebook and put it inside a drawer. She got up and went over to the window; it seemed like hours have passed since she began writing but she couldn't figure out how long it was for sure.

The sun was about to set, the sky began to darken but the breeze was still there making her mane move slowly and softly.

"Maybe I have expected too much from everyone... Maybe I was just caring about certain things that actually didn't matter at all... It isn't too late after all."

She moved to her bedroom door as she said once more to herself, "I think I need to pay a visit to some ponies..."