The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde VS. MLPby Primus JakeChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 1Story of the Corner: Ms. Sparkle the librarian was a mare of bright countenance which was usually lighted by a smile of sorts; precise, practical, and optimistic in discourse; at friendly meetings, or when the cider was to her taste, something eminently beautiful, if not magical, beaconed from her eye; something indeed which always found its way into her talk, and, more often and loudly, in the acts of her life. She was indeed plain with herself; read books when she was alone, to quench a taste for knowledge. But she had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering at the reasoning involved in their misdeeds; and in any case extremely inclined to help rather than to reprove. “I’m inclined to Luna’s heresy,” she used to say quaintly “Everypony should be loved and noticed for all deeds and misdeeds.” In this character, it was frequently her fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of down-going ponies. And to such as these, so long as they came about her chamber, she never marked a shade of change in her demeanor. Her friendships seemed to be founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a modest pony to accept her friendly circle already made from the hands of opportunity; and that was the librarian’s way. Her friends were those whom she had known for the longest; hence, no doubt, the bond that united her to Ms. Applejack, the well-known mare about town and the first pony Twilight Sparkle could call her friend in first moving to Ponyville. It was an enigma for many, what these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find in common. However, it was reported by those who encountered them in their Sunday walks, that they bantered back and forth the whole length of their trip, only to halt their conversations at the appearance of a friend. Both friends held their weekly stroll through town in high esteem. The two friends not only set aside occasions of pleasure, but even resisted calls of business, so that they might enjoy their excursion uninterrupted. It chanced on one of these rambles that their way led them down a by-street in a busy quarter of Ponyville. The street was small and what some might call quiet, but it drove a thriving trade on the weekdays. The inhabiting ponies were all doing well, it seemed, and all emulously hoping to do better still, and laying out the surplus of their goods flirtatiously; so that the shop fronts stood along that thoroughfare with an air of invitation, like rows of smiling salesponies. Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more florid charms and lay comparatively empty of passage, the street shone out in contrast to its neighborhood, like a fire in a forest; and with its colorful buildings and general cleanliness, instantly caught and pleased the eye of the passenger. A certain block of building thrust forward its gable on the street. It was at least two stories high; showed many windows, a magenta door stood out against the crème-coloured lower story of the building and chocolate-colored fixtures lined with frosting-like decorations littered the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of some sweet delicacy. A sign precariously hanging from a protruding chocolate-colored pole said nothing, and was only graced with the symbol of a pink-frosting cupcake. Occasionally, many a pony could be seen entering or exiting its premises. Ms. Applejack and the librarian were on the other side of the by-street; but when they came within sight of the entrance, the former lifted up her hoof and pointed. “Hey Twi, did ya ever notice that buildin’ there?” she asked; and when her companion had replied in the affirmative, “It’s been on my mind for a while now,” added she, “cuz of somethin’ weird that happened to me a while back.” “Really?” said Ms. Sparkle, with a slight change of voice, “what happened?” “Well, it happened like this,” returned Ms. Applejack; “I was comin’ home from some place on the other side of town, bout three in the morning last winter. I swear Twi, the street I was walkin’ on was scary silent; I saw nothin’ but lamp posts. The whole time, I was secretly wishin’ I’d run into a police-pony or somethin’. Anywho, as I was walkin’, I saw two ponies; one was a greyish-pink colored mare, walkin’ at a mighty fast pace, and the other a lil’ orange-colored pegasus filly with a purple mane, runnin’ as fast as her lil’ legs could take her down the street (Now that I think ‘bout it, I’m pretty sure she was one of Applebloom’s lil’ friends). Well, sure enough, the two ran into each other at the corner of the street, but this is where it gets weird. The mare just trampled the poor lil’ filly, and just calmly kept on walkin’, leavin’ her screaming for help on the ground. It sounds like nothin’ when I tell it, but I swear, it was the most gruesome thing I ever saw, Twi. It wasn’t like anypony I’d ever seen before; it was like some abomination without any heart or compassion. Why, as soon as I saw it, I ran at top speed and caught up to the varmint, grabbin’ her by the tail, and brought her back to the screaming filly. A small group had already formed around the poor thing. The mare was as cool as a cucumber and didn’t fight back in the slightest, but the way she stared at me I’ll never forget: so cold it sent sweat down the back of my neck. Anyway, turns out the people surroundin’ the filly were her own family, and later a doctor too. The filly wasn’t badly injured, only shook up a bit. You woulda thought that would be the end of it, but there was one other thing I couldn’t help but notice: as soon as I saw the mare, I could tell somethin’ was vile bout her, and the filly’s family saw nothin’ but evil at first glance of her, which is only natural. But the doctor’s reaction caught me off guard. He was like the rest of us, seein’ nothin’ but grim evil in the eyes of our prisoner, his beige coat turnin’ just a lil’ whiter every time he glanced at her. We told the mare that we could and would make such a scandal out of this, it would make her name stink from one end of Ponyville to the other, and if she had any friends, they’d be gone before sunrise. While we were stickin’ it to her, we also were doin’ our best to hold back the filly’s mother; boy, she was madder than a snowpony on a summer’s day. I’ll tell you, I’d never seen such a circle of hateful faces; and there was the pony in the middle, sneering and actin’ all cool, calm, and collected. I could see she was frightened too, but she was carryin’ it off, almost remindin’ me of Nightmare Moon. ‘If you want to make money off of this,’ she said, ‘I guess I’ll have to give in. Nopony wants to make a scene,’ she said. ‘Name your price.’ Well, after some hagglin’ we worked her up to a hundred bits for the filly’s family. So next, we had to get the money; and where do ya think she brought us, Twi? Right into that same buildin’ there. She whipped out a key, went in, and came back with ten bits and a check for the rest. But the check wasn’t signed by her. It was actually signed by… a name I really have no business namin’ right now, but the name’s well known, I’ll tell ya that. I thought that whole mess sounded fishy; I made sure to bring it out, sayin’ that ponies don’t go into a cellar door at four in the mornin’ and come out with another pony’s check worth almost a hundred bits. She just looked at us, all sneering. ‘Calm down,’ she said, ‘I’ll stay with you guys until morning and cash it myself.’ So we all set off, the doctor, the filly’s father, our new ‘acquaintance’ and myself, back to Sweet Apple Acres ‘till mornin’ (Of course, I made her sleep in the barn; wasn’t allowin’ that thing into my house). In the mornin’ we all set off to the bank. I gave the dang check myself, almost certain it was a fake. Turns out, it was as real as can be.” “Ohh wow,” said Ms. Sparkle. “Glad we feel the same way ‘bout it,” said Ms. Applejack. “I’m tellin’ ya Twi, in all my years here in Ponyville, I’ve never seen a mare so… so cold; the worst of it is that the pony whose name was on that check is the very pink of the town; everyone loves her, and she is one of our good dear friends. I’d betcha anythin’ it’s blackmail: our poor friend bein’ forced to pay tribute to that horrible varmint. Black Mail Corner is what I call that place, Twilight, and I bet there’s much more to it than that,” she added; the words fell into a vein of musing. From her thoughts she was recalled by Ms. Sparkle asking rather suddenly: “Do you know if the pony who wrote the check lives there?” “A likely place, isn’t it?” returned Ms. Applejack. “I looked into our friend’s address, and yes, I reckon she does.” “And you never asked our friend about the… situation you were in?” asked Ms. Sparkle. No, I haven’t: I got my own rule for that,” was the reply. “I feel it ain’t right to ask too many questions. Ya ask a question, and it’s like rolling an apple down a hill. You’re sittin’ at the top o’ the hill, and away yer apple goes. Soon it bumps into other stray apples along the way, startin’ them rollin’, then next thing ya know, someone at the bottom of the hill is hurt by an apple avalanche, and yer the guilty one. It’s a rule of mine: the weirder the situation, the less I ask.” “That is a good rule,” said the librarian. “But I’ve been keepin’ an eye on that place lately,” continued Ms. Applejack. “Seems to be both a local business and a house of sorts. Many people go in and out of it, but I’ve seen the pony from my adventure go in or come out only once in a great while. “ The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and then “Applejack,” said Ms. Sparkle, “there’s one thing I want to ask: do you know the name of the mare that walked over the filly?” “Well,” said Ms. Applejack, “I can’t see what harm it would do. It was a mare who I later figured out is known as Diane.” “Hm,” said Ms. Sparkle. “What sort of pony is she?” “She ain’t easy to describe. There was somethin’ downright wrong with her appearance; somethin’ displeasin’. I have never seen a pony I so disliked, and yet I really don’t know why. She is a pony who stands out, but at the same time there ain’t nothin’ special about her. I can’t describe her, save for her grey-pink coat and that icy stare, and a voice that sounded like she lost a whole winter’s harvest: far more dreadful than what we call depressed; but it ain’t that I can’t remember her; I could pick her out of a crowd right now.” Ms. Sparkle again walked some way in silence and obviously under a weight of heavy thought. “And you are sure she used a key?” she asked at last. “Twilight…” began Ms. Applejack, surprised Ms. Sparkle had doubted the word of the Element of Honesty. “I know, I know,” said Ms. Sparkle; “But it’s all so strange. The reason I haven’t asked the name of the pony whose name was on the check is because I know who it is already. Applejack, your tale has really hit home. If you exaggerated any part of the story or made stories to fill the holes in your memory, please tell me.” “By my Element,” returned Applejack sullenly, “I have told ya the absolute truth, Twi. The pony had a key; and still has it, for that matter. I saw her use it not a week ago.” Ms. Sparkle sighed deeply but never said a word; and the orange pony presently resumed. “Here’s another lesson to say nothin’,” said she. “I’m ashamed of my blabbermouth. Let’s agree to never talk ‘bout it again.” “I promise,” said the librarian. She proceeded to go through to motions of the infamous Pinkie-Pie Promise. Chapter 2Search for Ms. Diane: That evening Ms. Sparkle came home to her library in somber spirits and sat down to dinner without relish. It was her custom of a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the fire, a volume of some dry sorcery on her reading desk, until the clock in the neighbouring Ponyville tower rang out the hour of twelve, when she would go somberly and gratefully to bed. On this night, however, she took up her candle and went into her business room. There she opened her safe, took from the most private part of it a document endorsed on the envelope as ‘Ms. Pinkie’s Will,’ and sat down with a clouded brow to study its contents (It should be noted that Ms. Sparkle, being the town librarian and gifted with the skills of organization and intelligence, was often trusted to keep and secure documents of importance for the city of Ponyville). The will was holograph, for Ms. Sparkle, and though she took charge of it now that it was made, she had refused to lend any assistance in the making of it; it stated not only that, in case of the decease of Pinkie Pie, baker, all her possessions were to pass into the hands of her “friend and benefactor Pinkamena Diane P.” but that in case of Ms. Pinkie’s “disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding three months,” the said Pinkamena Diane should step into the said Pinkie Pie’s place without further delay and free from any burthen or obligation, beyond the payment of a few small sums to the members of the baker’s household. This document had long been the librarian’s eyesore. It offended her both as its keeper and as a lover of the peaceful and sane land of Equestria. It had been her ignorance of Ms. Diane that had swelled her indignation; now, by a sudden turn, it was her knowledge. It was already bad enough when the name was but a name of which she could learn no more. It was worse when it began to be clothed upon with detestable attributes. “I thought it was madness,” she said as she replaced the obnoxious paper in the safe, “and now I’m beginning to fear it is disgrace.” With that she blew out her candle and set forth in the direction of the Carousel Boutique, that citadel of fashion, where her friend, Ms. Rarity, had her house and received her crowding clients. “If anyone knows, it will be Rarity,” she had thought. Rarity’s sister knew and welcomed her; Twilight was subjected to no stage of delay, but ushered direct from the door to the dining-room where Ms. Rarity sat alone over her cider. This was a sophisticated, well-mannered mare, with fur of white. At sight of Ms. Sparkle, she sprang up from her chair and welcomed her with two hooves. The geniality, as was the way of the mare, was somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposed on genuine feeling. For these two were old friends, both thorough respectors of themselves and of each other, and what does not always follow, mares who thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. After a little rambling talk, the librarian led up to the subject which so disagreeably preoccupied her mind. “I suppose, Rarity,” said she, “you and I must be the two oldest friends that Pinkie Pie has?” “I wish the friends were younger,” chuckled Ms. Rarity. “But I suppose we are. And what of that? I see little of her now.” “Really?” said Twilight. “I thought you two see each other all the time.” “We had,” was the reply. “But it is more than couple months since Pinkie Pie became too… wild for me. She began to go wrong, wrong in mind, with all those parties; and though of course I continue to take an interest in her for old sake’s sake, as they say, I see and I have seen very little of our friend. Such uncouth partying,” added the designer, “could estrange Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.” “They have only differed on some interests,” Twilight thought. “That’s all.” She gave her friend a few seconds to recover her composure, and then approached the question she had come to put. “Did you ever come across a friend of hers… one Diane?” she asked. “Diane?” repeated Ms. Rarity. “No. Never heard of her. Since my time.” That was the amount of information that the librarian carried back with her to the great, dark bed on which she tossed to and fro, until the small hours of the morning began to grow large. It was a night of little ease on her toiling mind, toiling in mere darkness and besieged by questions. Six o’ clock struck on the bells of Ponyville tower, which was so conveniently near to Ms. Sparkle’s dwelling, and still she was digging at the problem. Before it had touched her only on the intellectual side; but now her imagination was also engaged, or rather enslaved; and as she lay and tossed in the gross darkness of the night, Ms. Applejack’s tale went by before her mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. She would be aware of the great field of lamps of the city; then of the figure of a grey-pink mare walking swiftly; then of a filly running from the doctor’s; and then these met, and that pony Juggernaut trod the filly down and passed on regardless of her screams. Or else she would see a room in a bakery, where her hot-pink friend lay asleep, dreaming and smiling; and then the door of that room would be opened, the curtains of the bed plucked apart, the sleeper recalled and, like that, there would stand by Pinkie’s bed a figure to whom power was given, and even at that dead hour, Pinkie must rise to do its bidding. The figure in these two phases haunted the librarian all night; and if at any time she dozed over, it was but to dream of Diane gliding more stealthily through sleeping houses, or move the more swiftly and still the more swiftly through wider labyrinths of lamp-lighted Ponyville, and at every street corner crush a filly and leave her screaming. And still this mare had no face by which Twilight might know it; even in her dreams, it had no face, or one that baffled her and melted before her eyes; and thus it was that that caused a singularly strong, almost an inordinate, curiosity to behold the features of the real Ms. Diane. If she could but once set eyes on her, she thought the mystery would lighten and perhaps roll altogether away, as was the habit of mysterious things when well examined. She might find a reason for Pinkie’s strange relations with the mare, and even for the startling clause of the will. At least it would be a face worth seeing: the face of a mare who was without boundaries of mercy: a face which had but to show itself to raise up in Applejack a spirit of enduring hatred. From that time forward, Ms. Sparkle began to haunt the corner bakery in the by-street of shops. In the morning before business hours, at noon when business was plenty, at night under the face of the fogged city moon, by all lights and at all hours of solitude or concourse, the librarian was to be found on her chosen post. “If she wants to be Ms. Hide,” she had thought, “I shall be Ms. Seek. And at last her patience was rewarded. It was a fine dry night; frost in the air; the street as clean as a castle floor; the lamps, unshaken by any wind, drawing a regular pattern of light and shadow. By ten o’clock, when the shops were closed, the by-street was very solitary and, in spite of the low growl of Ponyville all around, very silent. Small sounds carried far; domestic sounds out of the houses were clearly audible on either side of the roadway; and the sounds of the approach of any passenger preceded her by a long time. Ms. Sparkle had been some minutes at her post, when she was aware of an odd, light hoofstep drawing near. In the course of her nightly patrols, she had long grown accustomed to the quaint effect with which the hooffalls of a single pony, while she was still a great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and clatter of the city. Yet her attention had never before been so sharply and decisively arrested. The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled out suddenly louder as they turned the end of the street. The librarian, looking forth from the entry could soon see what manner of pony she had to deal with. She was small and the look of her, even at that distance, went somehow strongly against the watcher’s inclination. But she made straight for the bakery door, crossing the roadway to save time; and as she came, she drew a key like one approaching home. Ms. Sparkle stepped out and touched her on the shoulder as she passed. “Ms. Diane, I presume?” Ms. Diane shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath. But her fear was only momentary; and though she did not look the librarian in the face, she answered coolly enough: “That is my name. What do you want?” “I see you are going in,” returned the librarian. “I am an old friend of Ms. Pinkie - Twilight Sparkle of the town library - You must have heard my name; and meeting you so conveniently, I thought you might let me in.” “You won’t find Pinkie Pie here, she’s not home,” replied Ms. Diane, eyeing her key. And then suddenly, but without looking up, “How did you know about me?” she asked. “I’ll answer that in a second,” said Ms. Sparkle, “but first, will you do me a favor?” “If I must,” replied the other. “What shall it be?” “Let me get a better look at your face. I’ve noticed you have avoided eye contact since we first started talking, and I need to make sure I have found the right pony,” said the librarian. Ms. Diane appeared to hesitate, and then as if upon some sudden reflection, fronted about with an air of defiance; and the pair stared at each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds. “And now,” said the other pony, “how did you know me?” “By description,” was the reply. “Whose description? “We have common friends,” said Ms. Sparkle. “Common friends?” echoed Ms. Diane, a little hoarsely. “Who are they?” “Pinkie, for instance,” said the librarian. “You filthy liar! She never told you anything!” cried Ms. Diane, with a flush of anger. “I did not take you for a liar, Ms. Sparkle.” “Come now,” said Ms. Sparkle, “there is no need to accuse falsehoods.” The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the next moment with extraordinary quickness, she had unlocked the door and disappeared into the building. The librarian stood awhile when Ms. Diane had left her, the picture of disquietude. Then she began slowly to walk the street, pausing ever step or two and putting her hoof to her forehead like a pony in mental perplexity. Ms. Diane was dark-grey pink and quite small, with a mane as straight and flat as could be. She gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation. She had a displeasing, unsettlingly wide grin, when her face wasn’t overtaken by an annoyed snarl. She had borne herself to the librarian with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and she spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice, but not all of these together could explain the unknown disgust, sadness, and fear which radiated from the mare. A stray thought had once wondered thinking that the mare could be family to Pinkie. The thought had since lingered but was now extinguished entirely; Ms. Sparkle knew that despite some similarities, this creature was in no way family to her joyous friend. “There must be something else,” said the perplexed mare. “There is something more, if I could figure it out. Celestia bless me, the mare seemed hardly a pony! Almost primitive. Poor Pinkie, if I have seen the most evilest of faces, it is that of Diane.” A few evenings passed until Ms. Sparkle ventured back to the bakery. She thought that entering the building during business hours like any other customer was much less conspicuous than sneaking around outside. She entered the building, a bell above the door sounding her arrival. A smell of a variety of sweets wafted throughout the bakery. Many candy-cane striped pillars were scattered around, along with tables upon tables of delectable treats. A yellow stallion with a baker’s apron and cap stood behind the counter. “Is Pinkie home, Mr. Cake?” asked the librarian. “Lemme take a look, Twilight,” said Mr. Cake, going around the counter and up the staircase leading to the second floor. “You want to wait here or in the kitchen? It’s warmer in there.” “Here’s fine, thank you,” said the librarian, and she drew near and leaned on the counter. This building, in which she was now standing alone, was both work and home to her friend the baker; and Twilight herself was accustomed to speak of it as one of the happiest places in Ponyville. But tonight there was a shudder in her blood; the face of Ms. Diane sat heavy on her memory; she felt (what was rare of her) a nausea and distaste of life. She was ashamed of her relief when Mr. Cake presently returned to announce that Pinkie was gone out. “I saw Ms. Diane come in here late at night a while back, Mr. Cake,” she said. “Is that normal?” “That’s fine,” replied the yellow baker. “Ms. Diane has a key. She lives in a room next to Pinkie. They even have keys to each other’s rooms. “Pinkie seems to repose a great deal of trust in that mare, Mr. Cake,” resumed the other musingly. “Yes, she does indeed,” said Mr. Cake. “Personally, I don’t like her, but hey, she pays her rent.” “Have you talked to her much?” asked Twilight. “Ohhh no. She’s rarely here,” replied the baker. “We see very little of her, she mostly just goes in and out from her room out the back door.” “Okay, we’ll thank you, Mr. Cake. Good-night.” “Good-night, Twilight.” And the librarian set out homeward with a very heavy heart. “Poor Pinkie Pie,” she thought, “I’m worried that you are in deep trouble. Pinkie’s so wild and unpredictable, it could be so many things. It has to be the result of some trouble from her past, the ghost of some concealed disgrace.” And the librarian, scared by the thought, brooded awhile on her own past, groping in all corners of memory. Her past was fairly blameless: few ponies could read the chapters of their life with less apprehension. And then by a return on her former subject, she conceived a spark of hope. “This Pinkamena Diane, if she were studied,” thought she, “must have secrets of her own; black secrets, by the look of her; secrets that would make poor Pinkie’s worst look like sunshine. Things cannot continue as they are. It sickens me to think of this creature stealing like a thief to Pinkie’s bedside; poor Pinkie is in danger. If Ms. Diane knows about the will, she may grow impatient to inherit… I have to help. Please Pinkie, let me help,” she added, “please let me help.” Again she saw in her mind, clear as day, the strange clauses of the will. Chapter 3Ms. Pinkie Was Quite At Ease: A fortnight later, by excellent good fortune, the baker threw one of her infamous parties for some five or six old friends, all reputable ponies and all judges of good cider; and Ms. Sparkle so contrived that she remained behind after the others had departed. This was no new arrangement, but a thing that had befallen many scores of times. Where Twilight was liked, she was liked well. Hosts loved to detain the librarian when others had already their foot on the threshold; they liked to sit awhile in her unobtrusive company, sobering their minds in the pony’s rich knowledge after the expense and strain of gaiety. To this rule, Ms. Pinkie was no exception; and as of now sat on the opposite side of the fire- a bright pink, curly haired, sky-blue eyed pony of the same age as Ms. Sparkle, with something of a lively cast, but every mark of capacity and kindness- you could see by her looks that she cherished for Ms. Sparkle a sincere and warm affection. “I’ve been waiting to have a talk with you, Pinkie,” began the latter. “You know that will of yours?” A close observer might have gathered that the topic was distasteful; but the baker carried it off gaily. “Ohh Twilight,” said she, “why are you always so super-duper concerned about my will? You are the only pony I know who has a problem with it… well, unless you count Rarity, at what she called my “uncouth” ways. She’s one of my bestest of all bestest friends; I always want to invite her to my parties, but… well she thinks she’s a balloon: too “high up” to be seen with me. A meanie balloon, if you ask me. Nopony makes me as sad as Rarity.” “You know I never approved of it,” pursued Ms. Sparkle, ruthlessly disregarding the fresh topic. “My will? Yeah, I’ve noticed,” said the baker, a little less bounce in her step. “You tell me all the time.” “Well, I’m telling you again,” continued the librarian. “I have been learning something of your friend Diane.” Ms. Pinkie quit her bouncing altogether; something twinkled in her blue eye. “Don’t bring that up,” said she; all hints of joy had left her voice. “We agreed to not talk about that.” “What I’ve heard is unacceptable,” said Ms. Sparkle. “You don’t understand my position,” she said with a certain incoherency of manner. “I am painfully situated, Pinkie; my position is a very strange one. This is something that can’t be fixed by talking.” “Pinkie,” said Ms. Sparkle, “you know me; I am a trustworthy pony. Tell me your problem in confidence; and I know I can help you out of it.” “Twilight,” said the baker, “this is super swell of you to do, super-duper swell, and I can’t make enough cupcakes to thank you with. I believe you completely; I trust you before any other pony alive, even myself if I had the choice; but Twilight, it isn’t as bad as you are making it out to be. Let me tell you some super news: anytime I want, I can be done with Diane, never to see her again. I Pinkie-Pie Pro… no, DOUBLE Pinkie-Pie Promise you that; But thank you soo much for caring about me, thankyouthankyouthankyou… But one more thing, Twilight: keep this all a secret,” Ms. Pinkie bounced at her last word. Ms. Sparkle reflected a little, looking into the fire. “I trust you, Pinkie,” she said at last, getting to her hooves. “Since we’re on the subject, and hopefully for the last time,” continued the baker, “there’s something I want you to know. I am super interested in poor Diane. I know you ran into her; she told me she talked to you; I hope she wasn’t a meanie-meanie pants. But I care about this pony a lot; and if I ever disappear, Twilight, pretty please Pinkie-Pie Promise me you will bear with her and follow my will. You would if you knew the whole story; it would mean so much to me if you promised.” “I can’t pretend that I like her,” said the librarian. “I didn’t ask you to,” pleaded Ms. Pinkie, laying her hoof upon the other’s shoulder. “Pleasepleaseplease help her for my sake, if I’m gone.” Ms. Sparkle heaved an irrepressible sigh. “Well,” said she, “I promise,” and preceded to go through the motions of her friend’s signature promise, ending with a hoof covering her eye. Chapter 4The Hooves Murder Case: Nearly a month later, on October 18th, Ponyville was startled by a crime of singular ferocity and rendered all the more notable by the high popularity of the victim. The details were few and startling. A magenta-coated school teacher living alone in a house not far from the river, had gone upstairs to bed about eleven. Although a fog rolled over the city in the small hours, the early part of the night was cloudless, and the lane, which the teacher’s window overlooked, was brilliantly lit by a full moon. It seems she was romantically given, for she sat down upon her seat, which stood immediately under the window, and fell into a dream of musing. Never (she used to say, with streaming tears, when she narrated that experience), never had she felt more at peace with all ponies and felt more at kindly of the world. And as she so sat she became aware of a grey beautiful mare with a yellow mane, drawing near along the lane; and advancing to meet her, another and smaller mare, to whom at first she paid less attention. When they had come within speech (which was just under the teacher’s eyes) the grey pony smiled and accosted the other with a very pretty manner of politeness. It did not seem as if the subject of her address were of great importance; indeed, from her pointing, it sometimes appeared as if she were only inquiring her way; but the moon shone on her face as she spoke, and the teacher was pleased to watch it, it seemed to breathe such an innocent and genuine kindness of disposition, yet with something high too, as of a well-founded self-content. Presently her eye wandered to the other, and she was surprised to recognize in her a certain Ms. Diane, who had once visited her for directions and for whom she had conceived a dislike. She had on her back an abnormal-sized heavy candy cane, with which she was trifling; but she answered never a word, and seemed to listen with an ill-contained impatience. And then all of a sudden she broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with her hoof, brandishing the candy cane, and carrying on (as the teacher described it) like a madmare. The grey mare took a step back, with the air of one very much surprised and a trifle hurt; and with that, Ms. Diane broke out of all bounds and clubbed her to the earth. And next moment, with griffon-like fury, she was trampling her victim under hoof and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway. At the horror of these sights and sounds, the teacher fainted. It was two o’clock when she came to herself and called for the police. The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay her victim in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled. The cane with which the deed had been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and heavy peppermint, had broken in the middle under the stress of this insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had rolled in the neighboring gutter-the other, without doubt, had been carried away by the murderer. A mailbag was found upon the victim; but no cards or papers, except a sealed and stamped envelope, which she had been probably carrying from the post, and which bore the name and address of Ms. Sparkle. This was brought to the librarian the next morning, before she was out of bed; and she had no sooner seen it, and been told the circumstances, that she shot out a solemn lip. “I can’t say anything till I have seen the body,” said she; “this may be very serious.” And with the same grave countenance she hurried through her breakfast and drove to the police station, whither the body had been carried. As soon as she came into the cell, she nodded. “Yes,” said she, “I recognize her. I am sorry to say that this is mailmare Derpy Hooves.” “Oh Celestia,” exclaimed the officer, and the next moment his eye lighted up with profession ambition. “This will make a deal of noise,” he said. “And perhaps you can help us to the culprit.” And he briefly narrated what the teacher had seen, and showed the broken sweet. Ms. Sparkle had already quailed at the name of Diane; but when the candy cane was laid before her, she could doubt no longer; broken and battered it was, she recognized it for one she had herself presented many years before to Pinkie Pie. “Was this Ms. Diane, perhaps, small and grey-pink, by any chance?” she inquired. “Small, dull-pink, and particularly wicked-looking, is what the teacher calls her,” said the officer. Ms. Sparkle reflected; and then, raising her head, “Follow me,” she said, “I think I can take you to where she lives.” It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first fog of the season. A great crème-coloured pall lowered over the town, but the wind was continually changing and routing these embattled vapours; so that as the two trotted from street to street, Ms. Sparkle beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the backend of evening; and there, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths. This quarter of Ponyville seen under these changing glimpses, with the sneering darkness, and lack of passengers, and its lamps, which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the librarians eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare. The thoughts of her mind, besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and when he glanced at the companion of her walk, she was conscious of some touch of that terror of the law and the law’s officers, which may at times assail the most honest. As the two drew up before the address indicated, the fog lifted a little and showed her a lovely street, a small hardware store, a low eating house, a shop for the retail of quills and sofas, many fillies huddled in the doorways, waiting for the fog to lift for a chance to play, and many mares passing out to have a morning glass of cider; and the next moment the fog settled down again upon that part, as dull and grey as smoke, and cut her off from her lively surroundings, and left her facing their destination. This was the home of Pinkie Pie and her favorite; of a mare who was heir to all of Pinkie’s bits. A cyan-coated mare with a pink frosting-like mane was standing behind the counter. She had a caring face, and her manners were excellent. Yes, she said, Ms. Diane’s room was upstairs, but she was not home; she had been in that night very late, but she had gone away again in less than an hour; there was nothing strange in that; her habits were very irregular, and she was often absent; for instance, it was nearly two weeks since she had seen her till yesterday. “Well, we would like to see her room then,” said the librarian; and when the cyan mare began to declare this was impossible, a gross invasion of privacy, “But Mrs. Cake, it’s an emergency,” she added, “Joining me is Marshall Law, the chief of Ponyville’s police force.” A flash of odious joy shone in Mrs. Cake’s eyes like sunlight, but her voice hypocritically mimicked concern. “Ohh dear,” said she, “she is in trouble? What has she done?” Ms. Sparkle and the inspector exchanged glances, catching the shimmering in the baker’s eyes. “This Ms. Diane doesn’t seem to be a very popular character,” observed the latter. “And now, my good mare, just let me and Ms. Sparkle have a look around.” In the whole extent of the room, which remained mostly empty, Ms. Diane had only used a couple of the provided household wares; but the room was furnished with luxury and good taste. A closet was filled with cider; the plate was of silver and napery elegant; many fine-smelling candies were placed about the room, gifts (as Twilight supposed) from Pinkie Pie, who was much of a candy-hoarder of sorts. At this moment, however, the room bore every mark of having been recently and hurriedly ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with their pockets inside out; lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes, as though many papers had been burned. From these embers the inspector disinterred the butt end of a pink check book, which had resisted the action of the fire; the other half of the candy cane was found behind the door; and as this clenched his decisions, the officer declared himself delighted. A visit to the bank, where several hundred bits were found to be lying to the murderer’s credit, completed his gratification. “You can count on us, ma’am,” he told Ms. Sparkle: “We have her in our hooves. She must have gone insane, leaving behind the other half of the murder weapon, and, above all, burning the check book. Why, money’s life to the mare. All we have to do is wait for her at the bank, and get out the hoofcuffs. This last, however, was not so easy of accomplishment; for Ms. Diane had numbered few familiars- even the owners of Sugarcube Corner had only seen her twice; her family could nowhere be traced; she had never been photograph; and the few who could describe her were not enough to assist the case. Interestingly enough, one point they all agreed on was the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive impressed her beholders. Chapter 5Incident Of The Letter: It was late in the afternoon, when Ms. Sparkle found her way back to the bakery to see her pink friend, where she was at once admitted by Mr. Cake, and carried up past the kitchens and up to the second floor which had once been used for supply storage, to a hallway which was indifferently known as Ms. Pinkie’s quarters with its colorfully brilliant décor, which was adjacent to the dreaded hallway she had entered that morning. This was going to be the first time that the librarian had been received her friend’s quarter; and she eyed the charming decorations and structures with interest, and gazed round with a tasteful sense of curiosity as she crossed the hallway: the tables lined with streamers and their surface area filled in completely with plates of sweets, the floor strewn with crates of backing supplies and various ingredients, all viewable through the light falling through the cupcake-shaped cupola. At the further end a door could been seen, covered in a pink baize; and through this, Ms. Sparkle was at last received into the pink baker’s room. It was a large room, filled to the brim with the color the mare was infamous for; the excessiveness of the hue almost put a stain on Ms. Sparkle's eyes. The room was fitted round with decorations, foods of various sweetness, and seemingly edible furniture, and looked out upon Ponyville by three windows stained pink. The fire burned in the grate; a lamp was set lighted on the chimney shelf, for even in the houses the fog began to lie thickly; and there, close up to the warmth, sat Pinkie Pie who, horribly contradicting her surroundings, was looking deadly sick. She did not rise to meet her visitor, but held out a cold hoof and bade her welcome in a changed voice. “So,” said Ms. Sparkle, as soon as Mr. Cake had left them, “have you heard the news?” The baker shuddered. “They’ve been yelling it throughout town,” she said. “I heard it from my room.” “Well, we need to talk,” said the librarian. “I assisted Derpy with her wills and such, but I’m also helping you; I need to know what I’m doing. Please tell me you aren’t crazy enough to hide this mare?” “Twilight, I swear to Celestia!” cried the baker, “I swear to Celestia I will never see her again. I Pinkie-Pie Swear to you that I am done with her. It’s all over. She doesn’t want my help; you don’t know her like I do, Twilight; she's safe, wherever she is; I Pinkie-Pie Swear she will never be seen again.” The librarian listened gloomily; she did not like her friend’s uncharacteristic manner. “You seem pretty confident in her,” said she; “and for your sake, I hope you may be right. If it came to trial, your name might appear.” “I am sure of her,” replied Ms. Pinkie; “I know she's gone, but… but I can’t tell anypony why. But I need your advice about something. I've… I've received a letter; and I’m not sure if I should show it to the police. Could you please please do me the favor of keeping the letter and telling me your opinion of what I should do with it?” You would know what to do; I trust you more than anypony with this.” “Are you afraid showing it to the police would lead them to Diane?” asked the librarian. “No,” said the other. “At this point, I really don’t care what happens to her. I am done with that pony. I was thinking of my own reputation: I’m scared this whole situation might cause other ponies to group me with Diane if they found out about the letter.” Ms. Sparkle ruminated awhile; she was surprised at her friend’s selfishness, but yet relieved by it. “Well,” said she, at last, “let me see the letter.” The letter was written in an odd, upright hoofwriting and signed “Pinkamena Diane P.”: and it signified, briefly enough, that the writer’s benefactor, Ms. Pinkie, need labour under no alarm for her safety, as she had means of escape on which she placed a sure dependence. The librarian liked this letter well enough; it put a better colour on the intimacy than she had looked for; and she blamed herself for some of her past suspicions. “Do you have the envelope?” she asked. “I burned it,” replied Ms. Pinkie, “before I thought about what I was doing. But it didn’t have an address on it: it was hoof delivered.” “Can I keep the letter and reflect about the whole situation?” asked Twilight. “Please do! I want all the help you can give me,” was the reply, and with a sigh, “I really don’t have confidence in myself anymore.” “I’ll do it for you,” returned the librarian. “But one more thing: was it Diane who made you write the terms in your will about your disappearance?” The baker seemed seized with a qualm of faintness; she shut her mouth tight and nodded. “I knew it!” exclaimed Ms. Sparkle. “She was planning to murder you. Well, hopefully you are fine now.” “Ohh Twilight, I wish I was fine,” returned the baker solemnly: “I have learned a lesson- Ohh Celestia, Twilight, I've learned the hard way!” And she covered her face for a moment with her hooves. On her way out, the librarian stopped and had a word or two with Mr. Cake. “By the way,” said she, “Pinkie told me there was a letter handed in today: what was the messenger like?” But Mr. Cake was positive nothing had come except by post; “and that was still only bills,” he added. This news sent off the visitor with her fears renewed. Plainly the letter had come by Ms. Pinkie’s door; possibly, indeed, it had been written in the bakery; and if that were so, it must be differently judged, and handled with more caution. Some newscolts, as she went, were crying themselves hoarse along the streets: “Extra! Extra! Shocking murder of a mailmare!” That was the funeral oration of one friend and “client”; and she could not help a certain apprehension lest the good name of another should be sucked down in the eddy of the scandal. It was, at least, a ticklish decision that she had to make; and she began to cherish a longing for advice. It was not to be had directly; but perhaps, she though, it might be fished for. Presently after, she sat on one side of her own hearth, with Mr. Spike, her head assistant, upon the other, and midway between, at a nicely calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of particularly old cider that had long dwelt unsunned in the foundation of the library. The fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city, where the lamps glimmered like diamonds; and through the muffle and smother of these fallen clouds, the procession of the town’s life was still rolling in through the great arteries with a sound as a mighty wind. But the room was gay with firelight. Insensibly the librarian melted. There was no pony (or dragon) from whom she kept few secrets than Mr. Spike; and she was not always sure that she kept as many as she meant. Mr. Spike had often been seen at the bakery; he knew the Cakes; he could have scarce have failed to hear of Ms. Diane’s familiarity about the house; he might draw conclusions: was it not as well, then, that he should see a letter which put that mystery to rights? And above all since Mr. Spike, being a great assistant and intelligent, would consider the step natural and obliging? The assistant, besides, was a dragon of council; he could scarce read so strange a document without dropping a remark; and by that remark Ms. Sparkle might shape her future course. “It was so sad, what happened to Derpy,” she said. “I know, right? It’s affected so many ponies; everyone loved Derpy,” returned Mr. Spike. “The murderer had to be just plain heartless.” “Speaking of which, I want to talk to you about that,” replied Ms. Sparkle. “I have a document with me in her own hoofwriting; for now, only me and you know about it, because I don’t know what to make of it; all I know is it is bad news at best. But there it is; right in front of you, a murderer’s autograph.” Mr. Spike’s eyes brightened, and he sat down at once and studied it with passion. “No,” he said: “not heartless, but a very odd pony.” “And a very odd writer,” added the librarian. Just then, Owlowiscious entered with a note lined with a pink outlining. “Is that from Pinkie?” inquired the assistant. “Anything important, Twilight?” “It’s just an invitation to dinner, Spike. Why?” “Let me see it for a second,” and the assistant laid the two sheets of paper alongside and sedulously compared their contents. “Well,” he said at last, returning both; “that’s weird” There was a pause, during which Ms. Sparkle struggled with herself. “What’s weird?” she inquired suddenly. “Well,” returned the assistant, “the hoofwriting of both notes are really, almost scarily similar, basically completely identical, only differently sloped.” “That’s interesting,” said Ms. Sparkle. “It is weird, isn’t it?” returned Mr. Spike. “Remember, this is only between you and me, Spike,” said the librarian. “I know, I know,” said the assistant. But no sooner was Ms. Sparkle alone that night, than she locked the letter in her safe, where he reposed for that time forward. She had no doubt in Mr. Spike’s words, being her assistant in such matters as hoofwriting and being her own personal scribe; she knew Mr. Spike’s words were relevant. “What?!” she thought. “Pinkie Pie forged for a murderer!” and her blood ran cold in her veins. Chapter 6Remarkable Incident Of Ms. Rarity: Time ran on; thousands of bits were offered in reward, for the death of mailmare Ms. Hooves was resented as a public injury; but Ms. Diane had disappeared out of the ken of the police as though she had never existed. Much of her past was unearthed, indeed, and all disreputable: tales came out of the mare’s cruelty, at once so callous and violent; of her vile life, of her strange associates, of the hatred that seemed to have surrounded her career; but of her present whereabouts, not a whisper. From the time she had left Sugarcube Corner on the morning of the murder, she was simply blotted out; and gradually, as time drew on, Ms. Sparkle began to recover from the hotness of her alarm, and to grow more at quiet with herself. The death of Ms. Hooves was, to her way of thinking, more than paid for by the disappearance of Ms. Diane. Now that that evil influence had been withdrawn, a new life began for Ms. Pinkie. She came out of seclusion, renewed relations with her friends, became once more their familiar party-pony and entertainer; she was busy, she was much in the open air, she did good; her face seemed to open and brighten, as if with an inward consciousness of service; and for more than two months, the baker was at peace. On the 8th of January Ms. Sparkle had dined at the baker’s with a small party; Ms. Rarity had been there; and the face of the host had looked from one to the other as in the old days when the trio were inseparable friends. On the 12th, and again on the 14th, Pinkie Pie’s room was shut against the lawyer. “She’s been shut away in her room for days now,” Mr. Cake said, “she says she doesn’t want any visitors. Weird, right?” On the 15th, she tried again, and was again refused and having now been used for the last two months to see her friend almost daily, she found this return of solitude to weigh upon her spirits. The fifth night she had in Spike to dine with her; and the sixth she betook herself to Ms. Rarity’s. There at least she was not denied admittance; but when she came in, she was shocked at the change which had taken place in the dressmaker’s appearance. She had her death-warrant written legibly upon her face. The lovely mare had grown paler in her mane; the flesh under her eyes had fallen dramatically, eye-shadow trailing down her face as a mare who had been weeping; she was visibly older; and yet it was not so much these tokens of a swift physical decay that arrested the librarian’s notice, as a look in the eye and quality of manner that seemed to testify to some deep-seated terror of the mind. It was unlikely that the dressmaker should fear death; and yet that was what Ms. Sparkle was tempted to suspect. And yet when Ms. Sparkle remarked on her ill-looks, it was with an air of great firmness that Ms. Rarity declared herself a doomed mare. “I have had a shock,” she said, “and I shall never recover. It is a question of days until I move away from here. Well, life here has been pleasant; I’ve very much enjoyed it. I sometimes think if we all knew the truth, we’d all want to get away.” “Is what you’re talking about really that severe, Rarity?” Ms. Sparkle asked skeptically. “Ohh Twilight! It is the… worst… possib-“ “Anyway, Pinkie is ill too,” observed Ms. Sparkle. “Have you seen her?” But Ms. Rarity’s face changed, and she held up a trembling hoof. “I wish to see or hear no more of that mare,” she said in a loud, unsteady voice. “I am quite done with her; and I beg that you spare me any reference to one whom I regard as dead.” “Really now?” said Ms. Sparkle: and then after a considerable pause, “Can’t I do anything?” she inquired. “We are three very great friends, Rarity. We’ve been through so much together. Are you sure you want to throw it all away so quickly?” “Nothing can be done,” returned Ms. Rarity; “ask Pinkie herself. She knows.” “She won’t see me; she’s all but locked herself away in her room,” said the librarian. “I am not surprised by that,” was the reply. “Someday, Twilight, after I am gone, you may perhaps come to learn the truth. I cannot tell you. And in the meantime, if you can sit and talk with me of other things, for Celestia’s sake, stay and do so; but if you cannot keep clear of this accursed topic, then in Celestia’s name, go, for I cannot bear it.” As soon as she got home, Ms. Sparkle sat down and wrote to Ms. Pinkie, complaining of her exclusion from the house, and asking the cause of this unhappy break with Rarity; and the next day brought her a long answer. The quarrel with Ms. Rarity was incurable. “I don’t blame our bestest friend,” Pinkie wrote, “but I agree with her that we can never meet. From now on I plan to lead a lonely life; but please don’t forget our friendship: if my door is even shut to you, know that something is majorly wrong. Please let me go on my dark way. I have brought on myself a punishment and a danger that I cannot name. I am afraid I cannot giggle at the ghostie this time, Twilight. The one thing I ask of you to do for me, to ease my pain, is to respect the Element of Laughter’s silence.” Ms. Sparkle was amazed; the dark influence of Ms. Diane had been withdrawn, the baker had returned to her old tasks and amities; a week ago, the prospect had smiled and laughed with every promise of a cheerful and an honoured age; and now in a moment, friendship, and peace of mind, and the whole tenor of her life were wrecked. So great and unprepared a change pointed to madness; but in view of Rarity’s manner and words, there must lie for it some deeper ground. A week afterwards Ms. Rarity took to her chariot, and in something less than a fortnight she was gone. The night after the town found the empty boutique, at which she had been sadly affected, Ms. Sparkle locked the door of her business room, and sitting there by the light of a melancholy candle, drew out and set before her an envelope addressed by the hoof and sealed with the seal of her dressmaking friend. “PRIVATE: for the hooves of T. Sparkle ALONE, and in case of her predecease to be destroyed unread,” so it was emphatically superspribed; and the librarian dreaded to behold the contents. “I have lost one friend today,” she thought: “what if this costs me another.” And then she condemned the fear as a disloyalty, and broke the seal. Within there was another enclosure, likewise sealed, and marked upon the cover as “not to be opened till the death or disappearance of Ms. Pinkie Pie.” Ms. Sparkle could not trust her eyes. Yes, it was disappearance; here again, as in the mad will which she had long ago restored to its author, here again where the idea of a disappearance and the name of Pinkie Pie bracketed. But in the will, that idea had sprung from the sinister suggestion of the pony Ms. Diane; it was set there with a purpose all too plain and horrible. Written by the hoof of Rarity, what should it mean? A great curiosity came on the trustee, to disregard the prohibition and dive at once to the bottom of these mysteries; but professional honour and faith to her friend were stringent obligations; and the packet slept in the inmost corner of her private safe. It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it; and it may be doubted if, from that day forth, Ms. Sparkle desired the society of her remaining friend with the same eagerness. She thought of her kindly; but her thoughts were disquieted and fearful. She went to call indeed; but she was perhaps relieved to be denied admittance; perhaps, in her heart, she preferred to speak with Mr. Cake in the main area and surrounded by the air and sounds of the open city, rather than to be admitted into that room of voluntary bondage, and to sit and speak with its inscrutable recluse. Mr. Cake had, indeed, no pleasant news to communicate. The pink baker, it appeared, now more than ever confined herself to the room above the bakery; she was out of spirits, she had grown very silent, she did not laugh; it seemed as if she had something on her mind. Ms. Sparkle became so used to the unvarying character of these reports, that she fell off little by little in the frequency of her visits. Chapter 7Incident at the Window: It changed on Sunday, when Ms. Sparkle was on her usual walk with Ms. Applejack, that their way lay once again through the by-street; and that when they came in front of the bakery, both stopped to gaze on it. “Well,” said Ms. Applejack, “at least that’s all said and done with. “Won’t be seein’ much of that Diane anytime soon.” “I hope not,” said Ms. Sparkle. “Did I ever tell you that I saw her awhile back, and that I got the same feelings of dislike you said you experienced when you first saw her?” “It’s impossible to do one without the other,” returned Ms. Applejack. “And by the way, how come ya’ never told me this is where Pinkie Pie lives? I just recently found that out.” “Ohh, sorry. I guess it never came into conversation,” said Ms. Sparkle. “Speaking of which, let’s go around and look at the windows to see if we can find Pinkie. She won’t let anyone see her in her room, but I sometimes see her from afar at her window. To be honest, I am uneasy about poor Pinkie; but even if from outside, I think the presence of her friends will do her some good.” The area was very cool and a little damp, and full of premature twilight, although the sky, high up overhead, was still bright with sunset. The back facing window of the three windows on the protruding tower of the bakery was half-way open; and sitting close beside it, taking the air with an infinite sadness of mien, like some disconsolate prisoner, Ms. Sparkle saw Ms. Pinkie. “Hey! Pinkie!” she cried. “How are you feeling?” “Not good, Twilight,” replied the baker drearily, “not good. But it won’t last forever, thank Celestia.” “You spend too much time indoors nowadays,” said the librarian, “you should be out here, stretching your legs and having fun with us. Come on; grab some cupcakes and take a quick walk with us.” “That’s very nice of you guys,” sighed the other. “I would love to; but no, no, I can’t; I just can’t. But I’m very glad to see you guys; it really means a lot. I would invite you guys up but… but my room’s a wacky wreck.” “Well, in that case,” said the librarian, good-naturedly, “we’ll just have to talk to you from down here then,” “That’s what I was going to say,” returned the baker with a smile. But the words were hardly uttered, before the smile was struck out of her face by a strong convulsion from Ms. Pinkie’s body and was succeeded by an expression of such abject terror and despair, as froze the very blood of the two ponies below. Ms. Sparkle attempted to call to her friend, but to no avail. They saw it but for a glimpse for the window was instantly thrust close; but that glimpse had been sufficient, and they turned and left the street without a word; and it was not until they had come into a neighbouring thoroughfare that Ms. Sparkle at last turned and looked at her companion. They were both pale; and there was an answering horror in their eyes. “Celestia have mercy,” said Ms. Sparkle. But Ms. Applejack only nodded her head very seriously, and walked on once more in silence.
Chapter 1Story of the Corner: Ms. Sparkle the librarian was a mare of bright countenance which was usually lighted by a smile of sorts; precise, practical, and optimistic in discourse; at friendly meetings, or when the cider was to her taste, something eminently beautiful, if not magical, beaconed from her eye; something indeed which always found its way into her talk, and, more often and loudly, in the acts of her life. She was indeed plain with herself; read books when she was alone, to quench a taste for knowledge. But she had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering at the reasoning involved in their misdeeds; and in any case extremely inclined to help rather than to reprove. “I’m inclined to Luna’s heresy,” she used to say quaintly “Everypony should be loved and noticed for all deeds and misdeeds.” In this character, it was frequently her fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of down-going ponies. And to such as these, so long as they came about her chamber, she never marked a shade of change in her demeanor. Her friendships seemed to be founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a modest pony to accept her friendly circle already made from the hands of opportunity; and that was the librarian’s way. Her friends were those whom she had known for the longest; hence, no doubt, the bond that united her to Ms. Applejack, the well-known mare about town and the first pony Twilight Sparkle could call her friend in first moving to Ponyville. It was an enigma for many, what these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find in common. However, it was reported by those who encountered them in their Sunday walks, that they bantered back and forth the whole length of their trip, only to halt their conversations at the appearance of a friend. Both friends held their weekly stroll through town in high esteem. The two friends not only set aside occasions of pleasure, but even resisted calls of business, so that they might enjoy their excursion uninterrupted. It chanced on one of these rambles that their way led them down a by-street in a busy quarter of Ponyville. The street was small and what some might call quiet, but it drove a thriving trade on the weekdays. The inhabiting ponies were all doing well, it seemed, and all emulously hoping to do better still, and laying out the surplus of their goods flirtatiously; so that the shop fronts stood along that thoroughfare with an air of invitation, like rows of smiling salesponies. Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more florid charms and lay comparatively empty of passage, the street shone out in contrast to its neighborhood, like a fire in a forest; and with its colorful buildings and general cleanliness, instantly caught and pleased the eye of the passenger. A certain block of building thrust forward its gable on the street. It was at least two stories high; showed many windows, a magenta door stood out against the crème-coloured lower story of the building and chocolate-colored fixtures lined with frosting-like decorations littered the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of some sweet delicacy. A sign precariously hanging from a protruding chocolate-colored pole said nothing, and was only graced with the symbol of a pink-frosting cupcake. Occasionally, many a pony could be seen entering or exiting its premises. Ms. Applejack and the librarian were on the other side of the by-street; but when they came within sight of the entrance, the former lifted up her hoof and pointed. “Hey Twi, did ya ever notice that buildin’ there?” she asked; and when her companion had replied in the affirmative, “It’s been on my mind for a while now,” added she, “cuz of somethin’ weird that happened to me a while back.” “Really?” said Ms. Sparkle, with a slight change of voice, “what happened?” “Well, it happened like this,” returned Ms. Applejack; “I was comin’ home from some place on the other side of town, bout three in the morning last winter. I swear Twi, the street I was walkin’ on was scary silent; I saw nothin’ but lamp posts. The whole time, I was secretly wishin’ I’d run into a police-pony or somethin’. Anywho, as I was walkin’, I saw two ponies; one was a greyish-pink colored mare, walkin’ at a mighty fast pace, and the other a lil’ orange-colored pegasus filly with a purple mane, runnin’ as fast as her lil’ legs could take her down the street (Now that I think ‘bout it, I’m pretty sure she was one of Applebloom’s lil’ friends). Well, sure enough, the two ran into each other at the corner of the street, but this is where it gets weird. The mare just trampled the poor lil’ filly, and just calmly kept on walkin’, leavin’ her screaming for help on the ground. It sounds like nothin’ when I tell it, but I swear, it was the most gruesome thing I ever saw, Twi. It wasn’t like anypony I’d ever seen before; it was like some abomination without any heart or compassion. Why, as soon as I saw it, I ran at top speed and caught up to the varmint, grabbin’ her by the tail, and brought her back to the screaming filly. A small group had already formed around the poor thing. The mare was as cool as a cucumber and didn’t fight back in the slightest, but the way she stared at me I’ll never forget: so cold it sent sweat down the back of my neck. Anyway, turns out the people surroundin’ the filly were her own family, and later a doctor too. The filly wasn’t badly injured, only shook up a bit. You woulda thought that would be the end of it, but there was one other thing I couldn’t help but notice: as soon as I saw the mare, I could tell somethin’ was vile bout her, and the filly’s family saw nothin’ but evil at first glance of her, which is only natural. But the doctor’s reaction caught me off guard. He was like the rest of us, seein’ nothin’ but grim evil in the eyes of our prisoner, his beige coat turnin’ just a lil’ whiter every time he glanced at her. We told the mare that we could and would make such a scandal out of this, it would make her name stink from one end of Ponyville to the other, and if she had any friends, they’d be gone before sunrise. While we were stickin’ it to her, we also were doin’ our best to hold back the filly’s mother; boy, she was madder than a snowpony on a summer’s day. I’ll tell you, I’d never seen such a circle of hateful faces; and there was the pony in the middle, sneering and actin’ all cool, calm, and collected. I could see she was frightened too, but she was carryin’ it off, almost remindin’ me of Nightmare Moon. ‘If you want to make money off of this,’ she said, ‘I guess I’ll have to give in. Nopony wants to make a scene,’ she said. ‘Name your price.’ Well, after some hagglin’ we worked her up to a hundred bits for the filly’s family. So next, we had to get the money; and where do ya think she brought us, Twi? Right into that same buildin’ there. She whipped out a key, went in, and came back with ten bits and a check for the rest. But the check wasn’t signed by her. It was actually signed by… a name I really have no business namin’ right now, but the name’s well known, I’ll tell ya that. I thought that whole mess sounded fishy; I made sure to bring it out, sayin’ that ponies don’t go into a cellar door at four in the mornin’ and come out with another pony’s check worth almost a hundred bits. She just looked at us, all sneering. ‘Calm down,’ she said, ‘I’ll stay with you guys until morning and cash it myself.’ So we all set off, the doctor, the filly’s father, our new ‘acquaintance’ and myself, back to Sweet Apple Acres ‘till mornin’ (Of course, I made her sleep in the barn; wasn’t allowin’ that thing into my house). In the mornin’ we all set off to the bank. I gave the dang check myself, almost certain it was a fake. Turns out, it was as real as can be.” “Ohh wow,” said Ms. Sparkle. “Glad we feel the same way ‘bout it,” said Ms. Applejack. “I’m tellin’ ya Twi, in all my years here in Ponyville, I’ve never seen a mare so… so cold; the worst of it is that the pony whose name was on that check is the very pink of the town; everyone loves her, and she is one of our good dear friends. I’d betcha anythin’ it’s blackmail: our poor friend bein’ forced to pay tribute to that horrible varmint. Black Mail Corner is what I call that place, Twilight, and I bet there’s much more to it than that,” she added; the words fell into a vein of musing. From her thoughts she was recalled by Ms. Sparkle asking rather suddenly: “Do you know if the pony who wrote the check lives there?” “A likely place, isn’t it?” returned Ms. Applejack. “I looked into our friend’s address, and yes, I reckon she does.” “And you never asked our friend about the… situation you were in?” asked Ms. Sparkle. No, I haven’t: I got my own rule for that,” was the reply. “I feel it ain’t right to ask too many questions. Ya ask a question, and it’s like rolling an apple down a hill. You’re sittin’ at the top o’ the hill, and away yer apple goes. Soon it bumps into other stray apples along the way, startin’ them rollin’, then next thing ya know, someone at the bottom of the hill is hurt by an apple avalanche, and yer the guilty one. It’s a rule of mine: the weirder the situation, the less I ask.” “That is a good rule,” said the librarian. “But I’ve been keepin’ an eye on that place lately,” continued Ms. Applejack. “Seems to be both a local business and a house of sorts. Many people go in and out of it, but I’ve seen the pony from my adventure go in or come out only once in a great while. “ The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and then “Applejack,” said Ms. Sparkle, “there’s one thing I want to ask: do you know the name of the mare that walked over the filly?” “Well,” said Ms. Applejack, “I can’t see what harm it would do. It was a mare who I later figured out is known as Diane.” “Hm,” said Ms. Sparkle. “What sort of pony is she?” “She ain’t easy to describe. There was somethin’ downright wrong with her appearance; somethin’ displeasin’. I have never seen a pony I so disliked, and yet I really don’t know why. She is a pony who stands out, but at the same time there ain’t nothin’ special about her. I can’t describe her, save for her grey-pink coat and that icy stare, and a voice that sounded like she lost a whole winter’s harvest: far more dreadful than what we call depressed; but it ain’t that I can’t remember her; I could pick her out of a crowd right now.” Ms. Sparkle again walked some way in silence and obviously under a weight of heavy thought. “And you are sure she used a key?” she asked at last. “Twilight…” began Ms. Applejack, surprised Ms. Sparkle had doubted the word of the Element of Honesty. “I know, I know,” said Ms. Sparkle; “But it’s all so strange. The reason I haven’t asked the name of the pony whose name was on the check is because I know who it is already. Applejack, your tale has really hit home. If you exaggerated any part of the story or made stories to fill the holes in your memory, please tell me.” “By my Element,” returned Applejack sullenly, “I have told ya the absolute truth, Twi. The pony had a key; and still has it, for that matter. I saw her use it not a week ago.” Ms. Sparkle sighed deeply but never said a word; and the orange pony presently resumed. “Here’s another lesson to say nothin’,” said she. “I’m ashamed of my blabbermouth. Let’s agree to never talk ‘bout it again.” “I promise,” said the librarian. She proceeded to go through to motions of the infamous Pinkie-Pie Promise.
Chapter 2Search for Ms. Diane: That evening Ms. Sparkle came home to her library in somber spirits and sat down to dinner without relish. It was her custom of a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the fire, a volume of some dry sorcery on her reading desk, until the clock in the neighbouring Ponyville tower rang out the hour of twelve, when she would go somberly and gratefully to bed. On this night, however, she took up her candle and went into her business room. There she opened her safe, took from the most private part of it a document endorsed on the envelope as ‘Ms. Pinkie’s Will,’ and sat down with a clouded brow to study its contents (It should be noted that Ms. Sparkle, being the town librarian and gifted with the skills of organization and intelligence, was often trusted to keep and secure documents of importance for the city of Ponyville). The will was holograph, for Ms. Sparkle, and though she took charge of it now that it was made, she had refused to lend any assistance in the making of it; it stated not only that, in case of the decease of Pinkie Pie, baker, all her possessions were to pass into the hands of her “friend and benefactor Pinkamena Diane P.” but that in case of Ms. Pinkie’s “disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding three months,” the said Pinkamena Diane should step into the said Pinkie Pie’s place without further delay and free from any burthen or obligation, beyond the payment of a few small sums to the members of the baker’s household. This document had long been the librarian’s eyesore. It offended her both as its keeper and as a lover of the peaceful and sane land of Equestria. It had been her ignorance of Ms. Diane that had swelled her indignation; now, by a sudden turn, it was her knowledge. It was already bad enough when the name was but a name of which she could learn no more. It was worse when it began to be clothed upon with detestable attributes. “I thought it was madness,” she said as she replaced the obnoxious paper in the safe, “and now I’m beginning to fear it is disgrace.” With that she blew out her candle and set forth in the direction of the Carousel Boutique, that citadel of fashion, where her friend, Ms. Rarity, had her house and received her crowding clients. “If anyone knows, it will be Rarity,” she had thought. Rarity’s sister knew and welcomed her; Twilight was subjected to no stage of delay, but ushered direct from the door to the dining-room where Ms. Rarity sat alone over her cider. This was a sophisticated, well-mannered mare, with fur of white. At sight of Ms. Sparkle, she sprang up from her chair and welcomed her with two hooves. The geniality, as was the way of the mare, was somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposed on genuine feeling. For these two were old friends, both thorough respectors of themselves and of each other, and what does not always follow, mares who thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. After a little rambling talk, the librarian led up to the subject which so disagreeably preoccupied her mind. “I suppose, Rarity,” said she, “you and I must be the two oldest friends that Pinkie Pie has?” “I wish the friends were younger,” chuckled Ms. Rarity. “But I suppose we are. And what of that? I see little of her now.” “Really?” said Twilight. “I thought you two see each other all the time.” “We had,” was the reply. “But it is more than couple months since Pinkie Pie became too… wild for me. She began to go wrong, wrong in mind, with all those parties; and though of course I continue to take an interest in her for old sake’s sake, as they say, I see and I have seen very little of our friend. Such uncouth partying,” added the designer, “could estrange Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.” “They have only differed on some interests,” Twilight thought. “That’s all.” She gave her friend a few seconds to recover her composure, and then approached the question she had come to put. “Did you ever come across a friend of hers… one Diane?” she asked. “Diane?” repeated Ms. Rarity. “No. Never heard of her. Since my time.” That was the amount of information that the librarian carried back with her to the great, dark bed on which she tossed to and fro, until the small hours of the morning began to grow large. It was a night of little ease on her toiling mind, toiling in mere darkness and besieged by questions. Six o’ clock struck on the bells of Ponyville tower, which was so conveniently near to Ms. Sparkle’s dwelling, and still she was digging at the problem. Before it had touched her only on the intellectual side; but now her imagination was also engaged, or rather enslaved; and as she lay and tossed in the gross darkness of the night, Ms. Applejack’s tale went by before her mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. She would be aware of the great field of lamps of the city; then of the figure of a grey-pink mare walking swiftly; then of a filly running from the doctor’s; and then these met, and that pony Juggernaut trod the filly down and passed on regardless of her screams. Or else she would see a room in a bakery, where her hot-pink friend lay asleep, dreaming and smiling; and then the door of that room would be opened, the curtains of the bed plucked apart, the sleeper recalled and, like that, there would stand by Pinkie’s bed a figure to whom power was given, and even at that dead hour, Pinkie must rise to do its bidding. The figure in these two phases haunted the librarian all night; and if at any time she dozed over, it was but to dream of Diane gliding more stealthily through sleeping houses, or move the more swiftly and still the more swiftly through wider labyrinths of lamp-lighted Ponyville, and at every street corner crush a filly and leave her screaming. And still this mare had no face by which Twilight might know it; even in her dreams, it had no face, or one that baffled her and melted before her eyes; and thus it was that that caused a singularly strong, almost an inordinate, curiosity to behold the features of the real Ms. Diane. If she could but once set eyes on her, she thought the mystery would lighten and perhaps roll altogether away, as was the habit of mysterious things when well examined. She might find a reason for Pinkie’s strange relations with the mare, and even for the startling clause of the will. At least it would be a face worth seeing: the face of a mare who was without boundaries of mercy: a face which had but to show itself to raise up in Applejack a spirit of enduring hatred. From that time forward, Ms. Sparkle began to haunt the corner bakery in the by-street of shops. In the morning before business hours, at noon when business was plenty, at night under the face of the fogged city moon, by all lights and at all hours of solitude or concourse, the librarian was to be found on her chosen post. “If she wants to be Ms. Hide,” she had thought, “I shall be Ms. Seek. And at last her patience was rewarded. It was a fine dry night; frost in the air; the street as clean as a castle floor; the lamps, unshaken by any wind, drawing a regular pattern of light and shadow. By ten o’clock, when the shops were closed, the by-street was very solitary and, in spite of the low growl of Ponyville all around, very silent. Small sounds carried far; domestic sounds out of the houses were clearly audible on either side of the roadway; and the sounds of the approach of any passenger preceded her by a long time. Ms. Sparkle had been some minutes at her post, when she was aware of an odd, light hoofstep drawing near. In the course of her nightly patrols, she had long grown accustomed to the quaint effect with which the hooffalls of a single pony, while she was still a great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and clatter of the city. Yet her attention had never before been so sharply and decisively arrested. The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled out suddenly louder as they turned the end of the street. The librarian, looking forth from the entry could soon see what manner of pony she had to deal with. She was small and the look of her, even at that distance, went somehow strongly against the watcher’s inclination. But she made straight for the bakery door, crossing the roadway to save time; and as she came, she drew a key like one approaching home. Ms. Sparkle stepped out and touched her on the shoulder as she passed. “Ms. Diane, I presume?” Ms. Diane shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath. But her fear was only momentary; and though she did not look the librarian in the face, she answered coolly enough: “That is my name. What do you want?” “I see you are going in,” returned the librarian. “I am an old friend of Ms. Pinkie - Twilight Sparkle of the town library - You must have heard my name; and meeting you so conveniently, I thought you might let me in.” “You won’t find Pinkie Pie here, she’s not home,” replied Ms. Diane, eyeing her key. And then suddenly, but without looking up, “How did you know about me?” she asked. “I’ll answer that in a second,” said Ms. Sparkle, “but first, will you do me a favor?” “If I must,” replied the other. “What shall it be?” “Let me get a better look at your face. I’ve noticed you have avoided eye contact since we first started talking, and I need to make sure I have found the right pony,” said the librarian. Ms. Diane appeared to hesitate, and then as if upon some sudden reflection, fronted about with an air of defiance; and the pair stared at each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds. “And now,” said the other pony, “how did you know me?” “By description,” was the reply. “Whose description? “We have common friends,” said Ms. Sparkle. “Common friends?” echoed Ms. Diane, a little hoarsely. “Who are they?” “Pinkie, for instance,” said the librarian. “You filthy liar! She never told you anything!” cried Ms. Diane, with a flush of anger. “I did not take you for a liar, Ms. Sparkle.” “Come now,” said Ms. Sparkle, “there is no need to accuse falsehoods.” The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the next moment with extraordinary quickness, she had unlocked the door and disappeared into the building. The librarian stood awhile when Ms. Diane had left her, the picture of disquietude. Then she began slowly to walk the street, pausing ever step or two and putting her hoof to her forehead like a pony in mental perplexity. Ms. Diane was dark-grey pink and quite small, with a mane as straight and flat as could be. She gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation. She had a displeasing, unsettlingly wide grin, when her face wasn’t overtaken by an annoyed snarl. She had borne herself to the librarian with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and she spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice, but not all of these together could explain the unknown disgust, sadness, and fear which radiated from the mare. A stray thought had once wondered thinking that the mare could be family to Pinkie. The thought had since lingered but was now extinguished entirely; Ms. Sparkle knew that despite some similarities, this creature was in no way family to her joyous friend. “There must be something else,” said the perplexed mare. “There is something more, if I could figure it out. Celestia bless me, the mare seemed hardly a pony! Almost primitive. Poor Pinkie, if I have seen the most evilest of faces, it is that of Diane.” A few evenings passed until Ms. Sparkle ventured back to the bakery. She thought that entering the building during business hours like any other customer was much less conspicuous than sneaking around outside. She entered the building, a bell above the door sounding her arrival. A smell of a variety of sweets wafted throughout the bakery. Many candy-cane striped pillars were scattered around, along with tables upon tables of delectable treats. A yellow stallion with a baker’s apron and cap stood behind the counter. “Is Pinkie home, Mr. Cake?” asked the librarian. “Lemme take a look, Twilight,” said Mr. Cake, going around the counter and up the staircase leading to the second floor. “You want to wait here or in the kitchen? It’s warmer in there.” “Here’s fine, thank you,” said the librarian, and she drew near and leaned on the counter. This building, in which she was now standing alone, was both work and home to her friend the baker; and Twilight herself was accustomed to speak of it as one of the happiest places in Ponyville. But tonight there was a shudder in her blood; the face of Ms. Diane sat heavy on her memory; she felt (what was rare of her) a nausea and distaste of life. She was ashamed of her relief when Mr. Cake presently returned to announce that Pinkie was gone out. “I saw Ms. Diane come in here late at night a while back, Mr. Cake,” she said. “Is that normal?” “That’s fine,” replied the yellow baker. “Ms. Diane has a key. She lives in a room next to Pinkie. They even have keys to each other’s rooms. “Pinkie seems to repose a great deal of trust in that mare, Mr. Cake,” resumed the other musingly. “Yes, she does indeed,” said Mr. Cake. “Personally, I don’t like her, but hey, she pays her rent.” “Have you talked to her much?” asked Twilight. “Ohhh no. She’s rarely here,” replied the baker. “We see very little of her, she mostly just goes in and out from her room out the back door.” “Okay, we’ll thank you, Mr. Cake. Good-night.” “Good-night, Twilight.” And the librarian set out homeward with a very heavy heart. “Poor Pinkie Pie,” she thought, “I’m worried that you are in deep trouble. Pinkie’s so wild and unpredictable, it could be so many things. It has to be the result of some trouble from her past, the ghost of some concealed disgrace.” And the librarian, scared by the thought, brooded awhile on her own past, groping in all corners of memory. Her past was fairly blameless: few ponies could read the chapters of their life with less apprehension. And then by a return on her former subject, she conceived a spark of hope. “This Pinkamena Diane, if she were studied,” thought she, “must have secrets of her own; black secrets, by the look of her; secrets that would make poor Pinkie’s worst look like sunshine. Things cannot continue as they are. It sickens me to think of this creature stealing like a thief to Pinkie’s bedside; poor Pinkie is in danger. If Ms. Diane knows about the will, she may grow impatient to inherit… I have to help. Please Pinkie, let me help,” she added, “please let me help.” Again she saw in her mind, clear as day, the strange clauses of the will.
Chapter 3Ms. Pinkie Was Quite At Ease: A fortnight later, by excellent good fortune, the baker threw one of her infamous parties for some five or six old friends, all reputable ponies and all judges of good cider; and Ms. Sparkle so contrived that she remained behind after the others had departed. This was no new arrangement, but a thing that had befallen many scores of times. Where Twilight was liked, she was liked well. Hosts loved to detain the librarian when others had already their foot on the threshold; they liked to sit awhile in her unobtrusive company, sobering their minds in the pony’s rich knowledge after the expense and strain of gaiety. To this rule, Ms. Pinkie was no exception; and as of now sat on the opposite side of the fire- a bright pink, curly haired, sky-blue eyed pony of the same age as Ms. Sparkle, with something of a lively cast, but every mark of capacity and kindness- you could see by her looks that she cherished for Ms. Sparkle a sincere and warm affection. “I’ve been waiting to have a talk with you, Pinkie,” began the latter. “You know that will of yours?” A close observer might have gathered that the topic was distasteful; but the baker carried it off gaily. “Ohh Twilight,” said she, “why are you always so super-duper concerned about my will? You are the only pony I know who has a problem with it… well, unless you count Rarity, at what she called my “uncouth” ways. She’s one of my bestest of all bestest friends; I always want to invite her to my parties, but… well she thinks she’s a balloon: too “high up” to be seen with me. A meanie balloon, if you ask me. Nopony makes me as sad as Rarity.” “You know I never approved of it,” pursued Ms. Sparkle, ruthlessly disregarding the fresh topic. “My will? Yeah, I’ve noticed,” said the baker, a little less bounce in her step. “You tell me all the time.” “Well, I’m telling you again,” continued the librarian. “I have been learning something of your friend Diane.” Ms. Pinkie quit her bouncing altogether; something twinkled in her blue eye. “Don’t bring that up,” said she; all hints of joy had left her voice. “We agreed to not talk about that.” “What I’ve heard is unacceptable,” said Ms. Sparkle. “You don’t understand my position,” she said with a certain incoherency of manner. “I am painfully situated, Pinkie; my position is a very strange one. This is something that can’t be fixed by talking.” “Pinkie,” said Ms. Sparkle, “you know me; I am a trustworthy pony. Tell me your problem in confidence; and I know I can help you out of it.” “Twilight,” said the baker, “this is super swell of you to do, super-duper swell, and I can’t make enough cupcakes to thank you with. I believe you completely; I trust you before any other pony alive, even myself if I had the choice; but Twilight, it isn’t as bad as you are making it out to be. Let me tell you some super news: anytime I want, I can be done with Diane, never to see her again. I Pinkie-Pie Pro… no, DOUBLE Pinkie-Pie Promise you that; But thank you soo much for caring about me, thankyouthankyouthankyou… But one more thing, Twilight: keep this all a secret,” Ms. Pinkie bounced at her last word. Ms. Sparkle reflected a little, looking into the fire. “I trust you, Pinkie,” she said at last, getting to her hooves. “Since we’re on the subject, and hopefully for the last time,” continued the baker, “there’s something I want you to know. I am super interested in poor Diane. I know you ran into her; she told me she talked to you; I hope she wasn’t a meanie-meanie pants. But I care about this pony a lot; and if I ever disappear, Twilight, pretty please Pinkie-Pie Promise me you will bear with her and follow my will. You would if you knew the whole story; it would mean so much to me if you promised.” “I can’t pretend that I like her,” said the librarian. “I didn’t ask you to,” pleaded Ms. Pinkie, laying her hoof upon the other’s shoulder. “Pleasepleaseplease help her for my sake, if I’m gone.” Ms. Sparkle heaved an irrepressible sigh. “Well,” said she, “I promise,” and preceded to go through the motions of her friend’s signature promise, ending with a hoof covering her eye.
Chapter 4The Hooves Murder Case: Nearly a month later, on October 18th, Ponyville was startled by a crime of singular ferocity and rendered all the more notable by the high popularity of the victim. The details were few and startling. A magenta-coated school teacher living alone in a house not far from the river, had gone upstairs to bed about eleven. Although a fog rolled over the city in the small hours, the early part of the night was cloudless, and the lane, which the teacher’s window overlooked, was brilliantly lit by a full moon. It seems she was romantically given, for she sat down upon her seat, which stood immediately under the window, and fell into a dream of musing. Never (she used to say, with streaming tears, when she narrated that experience), never had she felt more at peace with all ponies and felt more at kindly of the world. And as she so sat she became aware of a grey beautiful mare with a yellow mane, drawing near along the lane; and advancing to meet her, another and smaller mare, to whom at first she paid less attention. When they had come within speech (which was just under the teacher’s eyes) the grey pony smiled and accosted the other with a very pretty manner of politeness. It did not seem as if the subject of her address were of great importance; indeed, from her pointing, it sometimes appeared as if she were only inquiring her way; but the moon shone on her face as she spoke, and the teacher was pleased to watch it, it seemed to breathe such an innocent and genuine kindness of disposition, yet with something high too, as of a well-founded self-content. Presently her eye wandered to the other, and she was surprised to recognize in her a certain Ms. Diane, who had once visited her for directions and for whom she had conceived a dislike. She had on her back an abnormal-sized heavy candy cane, with which she was trifling; but she answered never a word, and seemed to listen with an ill-contained impatience. And then all of a sudden she broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with her hoof, brandishing the candy cane, and carrying on (as the teacher described it) like a madmare. The grey mare took a step back, with the air of one very much surprised and a trifle hurt; and with that, Ms. Diane broke out of all bounds and clubbed her to the earth. And next moment, with griffon-like fury, she was trampling her victim under hoof and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway. At the horror of these sights and sounds, the teacher fainted. It was two o’clock when she came to herself and called for the police. The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay her victim in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled. The cane with which the deed had been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and heavy peppermint, had broken in the middle under the stress of this insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had rolled in the neighboring gutter-the other, without doubt, had been carried away by the murderer. A mailbag was found upon the victim; but no cards or papers, except a sealed and stamped envelope, which she had been probably carrying from the post, and which bore the name and address of Ms. Sparkle. This was brought to the librarian the next morning, before she was out of bed; and she had no sooner seen it, and been told the circumstances, that she shot out a solemn lip. “I can’t say anything till I have seen the body,” said she; “this may be very serious.” And with the same grave countenance she hurried through her breakfast and drove to the police station, whither the body had been carried. As soon as she came into the cell, she nodded. “Yes,” said she, “I recognize her. I am sorry to say that this is mailmare Derpy Hooves.” “Oh Celestia,” exclaimed the officer, and the next moment his eye lighted up with profession ambition. “This will make a deal of noise,” he said. “And perhaps you can help us to the culprit.” And he briefly narrated what the teacher had seen, and showed the broken sweet. Ms. Sparkle had already quailed at the name of Diane; but when the candy cane was laid before her, she could doubt no longer; broken and battered it was, she recognized it for one she had herself presented many years before to Pinkie Pie. “Was this Ms. Diane, perhaps, small and grey-pink, by any chance?” she inquired. “Small, dull-pink, and particularly wicked-looking, is what the teacher calls her,” said the officer. Ms. Sparkle reflected; and then, raising her head, “Follow me,” she said, “I think I can take you to where she lives.” It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first fog of the season. A great crème-coloured pall lowered over the town, but the wind was continually changing and routing these embattled vapours; so that as the two trotted from street to street, Ms. Sparkle beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the backend of evening; and there, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths. This quarter of Ponyville seen under these changing glimpses, with the sneering darkness, and lack of passengers, and its lamps, which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the librarians eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare. The thoughts of her mind, besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and when he glanced at the companion of her walk, she was conscious of some touch of that terror of the law and the law’s officers, which may at times assail the most honest. As the two drew up before the address indicated, the fog lifted a little and showed her a lovely street, a small hardware store, a low eating house, a shop for the retail of quills and sofas, many fillies huddled in the doorways, waiting for the fog to lift for a chance to play, and many mares passing out to have a morning glass of cider; and the next moment the fog settled down again upon that part, as dull and grey as smoke, and cut her off from her lively surroundings, and left her facing their destination. This was the home of Pinkie Pie and her favorite; of a mare who was heir to all of Pinkie’s bits. A cyan-coated mare with a pink frosting-like mane was standing behind the counter. She had a caring face, and her manners were excellent. Yes, she said, Ms. Diane’s room was upstairs, but she was not home; she had been in that night very late, but she had gone away again in less than an hour; there was nothing strange in that; her habits were very irregular, and she was often absent; for instance, it was nearly two weeks since she had seen her till yesterday. “Well, we would like to see her room then,” said the librarian; and when the cyan mare began to declare this was impossible, a gross invasion of privacy, “But Mrs. Cake, it’s an emergency,” she added, “Joining me is Marshall Law, the chief of Ponyville’s police force.” A flash of odious joy shone in Mrs. Cake’s eyes like sunlight, but her voice hypocritically mimicked concern. “Ohh dear,” said she, “she is in trouble? What has she done?” Ms. Sparkle and the inspector exchanged glances, catching the shimmering in the baker’s eyes. “This Ms. Diane doesn’t seem to be a very popular character,” observed the latter. “And now, my good mare, just let me and Ms. Sparkle have a look around.” In the whole extent of the room, which remained mostly empty, Ms. Diane had only used a couple of the provided household wares; but the room was furnished with luxury and good taste. A closet was filled with cider; the plate was of silver and napery elegant; many fine-smelling candies were placed about the room, gifts (as Twilight supposed) from Pinkie Pie, who was much of a candy-hoarder of sorts. At this moment, however, the room bore every mark of having been recently and hurriedly ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with their pockets inside out; lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes, as though many papers had been burned. From these embers the inspector disinterred the butt end of a pink check book, which had resisted the action of the fire; the other half of the candy cane was found behind the door; and as this clenched his decisions, the officer declared himself delighted. A visit to the bank, where several hundred bits were found to be lying to the murderer’s credit, completed his gratification. “You can count on us, ma’am,” he told Ms. Sparkle: “We have her in our hooves. She must have gone insane, leaving behind the other half of the murder weapon, and, above all, burning the check book. Why, money’s life to the mare. All we have to do is wait for her at the bank, and get out the hoofcuffs. This last, however, was not so easy of accomplishment; for Ms. Diane had numbered few familiars- even the owners of Sugarcube Corner had only seen her twice; her family could nowhere be traced; she had never been photograph; and the few who could describe her were not enough to assist the case. Interestingly enough, one point they all agreed on was the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive impressed her beholders.
Chapter 5Incident Of The Letter: It was late in the afternoon, when Ms. Sparkle found her way back to the bakery to see her pink friend, where she was at once admitted by Mr. Cake, and carried up past the kitchens and up to the second floor which had once been used for supply storage, to a hallway which was indifferently known as Ms. Pinkie’s quarters with its colorfully brilliant décor, which was adjacent to the dreaded hallway she had entered that morning. This was going to be the first time that the librarian had been received her friend’s quarter; and she eyed the charming decorations and structures with interest, and gazed round with a tasteful sense of curiosity as she crossed the hallway: the tables lined with streamers and their surface area filled in completely with plates of sweets, the floor strewn with crates of backing supplies and various ingredients, all viewable through the light falling through the cupcake-shaped cupola. At the further end a door could been seen, covered in a pink baize; and through this, Ms. Sparkle was at last received into the pink baker’s room. It was a large room, filled to the brim with the color the mare was infamous for; the excessiveness of the hue almost put a stain on Ms. Sparkle's eyes. The room was fitted round with decorations, foods of various sweetness, and seemingly edible furniture, and looked out upon Ponyville by three windows stained pink. The fire burned in the grate; a lamp was set lighted on the chimney shelf, for even in the houses the fog began to lie thickly; and there, close up to the warmth, sat Pinkie Pie who, horribly contradicting her surroundings, was looking deadly sick. She did not rise to meet her visitor, but held out a cold hoof and bade her welcome in a changed voice. “So,” said Ms. Sparkle, as soon as Mr. Cake had left them, “have you heard the news?” The baker shuddered. “They’ve been yelling it throughout town,” she said. “I heard it from my room.” “Well, we need to talk,” said the librarian. “I assisted Derpy with her wills and such, but I’m also helping you; I need to know what I’m doing. Please tell me you aren’t crazy enough to hide this mare?” “Twilight, I swear to Celestia!” cried the baker, “I swear to Celestia I will never see her again. I Pinkie-Pie Swear to you that I am done with her. It’s all over. She doesn’t want my help; you don’t know her like I do, Twilight; she's safe, wherever she is; I Pinkie-Pie Swear she will never be seen again.” The librarian listened gloomily; she did not like her friend’s uncharacteristic manner. “You seem pretty confident in her,” said she; “and for your sake, I hope you may be right. If it came to trial, your name might appear.” “I am sure of her,” replied Ms. Pinkie; “I know she's gone, but… but I can’t tell anypony why. But I need your advice about something. I've… I've received a letter; and I’m not sure if I should show it to the police. Could you please please do me the favor of keeping the letter and telling me your opinion of what I should do with it?” You would know what to do; I trust you more than anypony with this.” “Are you afraid showing it to the police would lead them to Diane?” asked the librarian. “No,” said the other. “At this point, I really don’t care what happens to her. I am done with that pony. I was thinking of my own reputation: I’m scared this whole situation might cause other ponies to group me with Diane if they found out about the letter.” Ms. Sparkle ruminated awhile; she was surprised at her friend’s selfishness, but yet relieved by it. “Well,” said she, at last, “let me see the letter.” The letter was written in an odd, upright hoofwriting and signed “Pinkamena Diane P.”: and it signified, briefly enough, that the writer’s benefactor, Ms. Pinkie, need labour under no alarm for her safety, as she had means of escape on which she placed a sure dependence. The librarian liked this letter well enough; it put a better colour on the intimacy than she had looked for; and she blamed herself for some of her past suspicions. “Do you have the envelope?” she asked. “I burned it,” replied Ms. Pinkie, “before I thought about what I was doing. But it didn’t have an address on it: it was hoof delivered.” “Can I keep the letter and reflect about the whole situation?” asked Twilight. “Please do! I want all the help you can give me,” was the reply, and with a sigh, “I really don’t have confidence in myself anymore.” “I’ll do it for you,” returned the librarian. “But one more thing: was it Diane who made you write the terms in your will about your disappearance?” The baker seemed seized with a qualm of faintness; she shut her mouth tight and nodded. “I knew it!” exclaimed Ms. Sparkle. “She was planning to murder you. Well, hopefully you are fine now.” “Ohh Twilight, I wish I was fine,” returned the baker solemnly: “I have learned a lesson- Ohh Celestia, Twilight, I've learned the hard way!” And she covered her face for a moment with her hooves. On her way out, the librarian stopped and had a word or two with Mr. Cake. “By the way,” said she, “Pinkie told me there was a letter handed in today: what was the messenger like?” But Mr. Cake was positive nothing had come except by post; “and that was still only bills,” he added. This news sent off the visitor with her fears renewed. Plainly the letter had come by Ms. Pinkie’s door; possibly, indeed, it had been written in the bakery; and if that were so, it must be differently judged, and handled with more caution. Some newscolts, as she went, were crying themselves hoarse along the streets: “Extra! Extra! Shocking murder of a mailmare!” That was the funeral oration of one friend and “client”; and she could not help a certain apprehension lest the good name of another should be sucked down in the eddy of the scandal. It was, at least, a ticklish decision that she had to make; and she began to cherish a longing for advice. It was not to be had directly; but perhaps, she though, it might be fished for. Presently after, she sat on one side of her own hearth, with Mr. Spike, her head assistant, upon the other, and midway between, at a nicely calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of particularly old cider that had long dwelt unsunned in the foundation of the library. The fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city, where the lamps glimmered like diamonds; and through the muffle and smother of these fallen clouds, the procession of the town’s life was still rolling in through the great arteries with a sound as a mighty wind. But the room was gay with firelight. Insensibly the librarian melted. There was no pony (or dragon) from whom she kept few secrets than Mr. Spike; and she was not always sure that she kept as many as she meant. Mr. Spike had often been seen at the bakery; he knew the Cakes; he could have scarce have failed to hear of Ms. Diane’s familiarity about the house; he might draw conclusions: was it not as well, then, that he should see a letter which put that mystery to rights? And above all since Mr. Spike, being a great assistant and intelligent, would consider the step natural and obliging? The assistant, besides, was a dragon of council; he could scarce read so strange a document without dropping a remark; and by that remark Ms. Sparkle might shape her future course. “It was so sad, what happened to Derpy,” she said. “I know, right? It’s affected so many ponies; everyone loved Derpy,” returned Mr. Spike. “The murderer had to be just plain heartless.” “Speaking of which, I want to talk to you about that,” replied Ms. Sparkle. “I have a document with me in her own hoofwriting; for now, only me and you know about it, because I don’t know what to make of it; all I know is it is bad news at best. But there it is; right in front of you, a murderer’s autograph.” Mr. Spike’s eyes brightened, and he sat down at once and studied it with passion. “No,” he said: “not heartless, but a very odd pony.” “And a very odd writer,” added the librarian. Just then, Owlowiscious entered with a note lined with a pink outlining. “Is that from Pinkie?” inquired the assistant. “Anything important, Twilight?” “It’s just an invitation to dinner, Spike. Why?” “Let me see it for a second,” and the assistant laid the two sheets of paper alongside and sedulously compared their contents. “Well,” he said at last, returning both; “that’s weird” There was a pause, during which Ms. Sparkle struggled with herself. “What’s weird?” she inquired suddenly. “Well,” returned the assistant, “the hoofwriting of both notes are really, almost scarily similar, basically completely identical, only differently sloped.” “That’s interesting,” said Ms. Sparkle. “It is weird, isn’t it?” returned Mr. Spike. “Remember, this is only between you and me, Spike,” said the librarian. “I know, I know,” said the assistant. But no sooner was Ms. Sparkle alone that night, than she locked the letter in her safe, where he reposed for that time forward. She had no doubt in Mr. Spike’s words, being her assistant in such matters as hoofwriting and being her own personal scribe; she knew Mr. Spike’s words were relevant. “What?!” she thought. “Pinkie Pie forged for a murderer!” and her blood ran cold in her veins.
Chapter 6Remarkable Incident Of Ms. Rarity: Time ran on; thousands of bits were offered in reward, for the death of mailmare Ms. Hooves was resented as a public injury; but Ms. Diane had disappeared out of the ken of the police as though she had never existed. Much of her past was unearthed, indeed, and all disreputable: tales came out of the mare’s cruelty, at once so callous and violent; of her vile life, of her strange associates, of the hatred that seemed to have surrounded her career; but of her present whereabouts, not a whisper. From the time she had left Sugarcube Corner on the morning of the murder, she was simply blotted out; and gradually, as time drew on, Ms. Sparkle began to recover from the hotness of her alarm, and to grow more at quiet with herself. The death of Ms. Hooves was, to her way of thinking, more than paid for by the disappearance of Ms. Diane. Now that that evil influence had been withdrawn, a new life began for Ms. Pinkie. She came out of seclusion, renewed relations with her friends, became once more their familiar party-pony and entertainer; she was busy, she was much in the open air, she did good; her face seemed to open and brighten, as if with an inward consciousness of service; and for more than two months, the baker was at peace. On the 8th of January Ms. Sparkle had dined at the baker’s with a small party; Ms. Rarity had been there; and the face of the host had looked from one to the other as in the old days when the trio were inseparable friends. On the 12th, and again on the 14th, Pinkie Pie’s room was shut against the lawyer. “She’s been shut away in her room for days now,” Mr. Cake said, “she says she doesn’t want any visitors. Weird, right?” On the 15th, she tried again, and was again refused and having now been used for the last two months to see her friend almost daily, she found this return of solitude to weigh upon her spirits. The fifth night she had in Spike to dine with her; and the sixth she betook herself to Ms. Rarity’s. There at least she was not denied admittance; but when she came in, she was shocked at the change which had taken place in the dressmaker’s appearance. She had her death-warrant written legibly upon her face. The lovely mare had grown paler in her mane; the flesh under her eyes had fallen dramatically, eye-shadow trailing down her face as a mare who had been weeping; she was visibly older; and yet it was not so much these tokens of a swift physical decay that arrested the librarian’s notice, as a look in the eye and quality of manner that seemed to testify to some deep-seated terror of the mind. It was unlikely that the dressmaker should fear death; and yet that was what Ms. Sparkle was tempted to suspect. And yet when Ms. Sparkle remarked on her ill-looks, it was with an air of great firmness that Ms. Rarity declared herself a doomed mare. “I have had a shock,” she said, “and I shall never recover. It is a question of days until I move away from here. Well, life here has been pleasant; I’ve very much enjoyed it. I sometimes think if we all knew the truth, we’d all want to get away.” “Is what you’re talking about really that severe, Rarity?” Ms. Sparkle asked skeptically. “Ohh Twilight! It is the… worst… possib-“ “Anyway, Pinkie is ill too,” observed Ms. Sparkle. “Have you seen her?” But Ms. Rarity’s face changed, and she held up a trembling hoof. “I wish to see or hear no more of that mare,” she said in a loud, unsteady voice. “I am quite done with her; and I beg that you spare me any reference to one whom I regard as dead.” “Really now?” said Ms. Sparkle: and then after a considerable pause, “Can’t I do anything?” she inquired. “We are three very great friends, Rarity. We’ve been through so much together. Are you sure you want to throw it all away so quickly?” “Nothing can be done,” returned Ms. Rarity; “ask Pinkie herself. She knows.” “She won’t see me; she’s all but locked herself away in her room,” said the librarian. “I am not surprised by that,” was the reply. “Someday, Twilight, after I am gone, you may perhaps come to learn the truth. I cannot tell you. And in the meantime, if you can sit and talk with me of other things, for Celestia’s sake, stay and do so; but if you cannot keep clear of this accursed topic, then in Celestia’s name, go, for I cannot bear it.” As soon as she got home, Ms. Sparkle sat down and wrote to Ms. Pinkie, complaining of her exclusion from the house, and asking the cause of this unhappy break with Rarity; and the next day brought her a long answer. The quarrel with Ms. Rarity was incurable. “I don’t blame our bestest friend,” Pinkie wrote, “but I agree with her that we can never meet. From now on I plan to lead a lonely life; but please don’t forget our friendship: if my door is even shut to you, know that something is majorly wrong. Please let me go on my dark way. I have brought on myself a punishment and a danger that I cannot name. I am afraid I cannot giggle at the ghostie this time, Twilight. The one thing I ask of you to do for me, to ease my pain, is to respect the Element of Laughter’s silence.” Ms. Sparkle was amazed; the dark influence of Ms. Diane had been withdrawn, the baker had returned to her old tasks and amities; a week ago, the prospect had smiled and laughed with every promise of a cheerful and an honoured age; and now in a moment, friendship, and peace of mind, and the whole tenor of her life were wrecked. So great and unprepared a change pointed to madness; but in view of Rarity’s manner and words, there must lie for it some deeper ground. A week afterwards Ms. Rarity took to her chariot, and in something less than a fortnight she was gone. The night after the town found the empty boutique, at which she had been sadly affected, Ms. Sparkle locked the door of her business room, and sitting there by the light of a melancholy candle, drew out and set before her an envelope addressed by the hoof and sealed with the seal of her dressmaking friend. “PRIVATE: for the hooves of T. Sparkle ALONE, and in case of her predecease to be destroyed unread,” so it was emphatically superspribed; and the librarian dreaded to behold the contents. “I have lost one friend today,” she thought: “what if this costs me another.” And then she condemned the fear as a disloyalty, and broke the seal. Within there was another enclosure, likewise sealed, and marked upon the cover as “not to be opened till the death or disappearance of Ms. Pinkie Pie.” Ms. Sparkle could not trust her eyes. Yes, it was disappearance; here again, as in the mad will which she had long ago restored to its author, here again where the idea of a disappearance and the name of Pinkie Pie bracketed. But in the will, that idea had sprung from the sinister suggestion of the pony Ms. Diane; it was set there with a purpose all too plain and horrible. Written by the hoof of Rarity, what should it mean? A great curiosity came on the trustee, to disregard the prohibition and dive at once to the bottom of these mysteries; but professional honour and faith to her friend were stringent obligations; and the packet slept in the inmost corner of her private safe. It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it; and it may be doubted if, from that day forth, Ms. Sparkle desired the society of her remaining friend with the same eagerness. She thought of her kindly; but her thoughts were disquieted and fearful. She went to call indeed; but she was perhaps relieved to be denied admittance; perhaps, in her heart, she preferred to speak with Mr. Cake in the main area and surrounded by the air and sounds of the open city, rather than to be admitted into that room of voluntary bondage, and to sit and speak with its inscrutable recluse. Mr. Cake had, indeed, no pleasant news to communicate. The pink baker, it appeared, now more than ever confined herself to the room above the bakery; she was out of spirits, she had grown very silent, she did not laugh; it seemed as if she had something on her mind. Ms. Sparkle became so used to the unvarying character of these reports, that she fell off little by little in the frequency of her visits.
Chapter 7Incident at the Window: It changed on Sunday, when Ms. Sparkle was on her usual walk with Ms. Applejack, that their way lay once again through the by-street; and that when they came in front of the bakery, both stopped to gaze on it. “Well,” said Ms. Applejack, “at least that’s all said and done with. “Won’t be seein’ much of that Diane anytime soon.” “I hope not,” said Ms. Sparkle. “Did I ever tell you that I saw her awhile back, and that I got the same feelings of dislike you said you experienced when you first saw her?” “It’s impossible to do one without the other,” returned Ms. Applejack. “And by the way, how come ya’ never told me this is where Pinkie Pie lives? I just recently found that out.” “Ohh, sorry. I guess it never came into conversation,” said Ms. Sparkle. “Speaking of which, let’s go around and look at the windows to see if we can find Pinkie. She won’t let anyone see her in her room, but I sometimes see her from afar at her window. To be honest, I am uneasy about poor Pinkie; but even if from outside, I think the presence of her friends will do her some good.” The area was very cool and a little damp, and full of premature twilight, although the sky, high up overhead, was still bright with sunset. The back facing window of the three windows on the protruding tower of the bakery was half-way open; and sitting close beside it, taking the air with an infinite sadness of mien, like some disconsolate prisoner, Ms. Sparkle saw Ms. Pinkie. “Hey! Pinkie!” she cried. “How are you feeling?” “Not good, Twilight,” replied the baker drearily, “not good. But it won’t last forever, thank Celestia.” “You spend too much time indoors nowadays,” said the librarian, “you should be out here, stretching your legs and having fun with us. Come on; grab some cupcakes and take a quick walk with us.” “That’s very nice of you guys,” sighed the other. “I would love to; but no, no, I can’t; I just can’t. But I’m very glad to see you guys; it really means a lot. I would invite you guys up but… but my room’s a wacky wreck.” “Well, in that case,” said the librarian, good-naturedly, “we’ll just have to talk to you from down here then,” “That’s what I was going to say,” returned the baker with a smile. But the words were hardly uttered, before the smile was struck out of her face by a strong convulsion from Ms. Pinkie’s body and was succeeded by an expression of such abject terror and despair, as froze the very blood of the two ponies below. Ms. Sparkle attempted to call to her friend, but to no avail. They saw it but for a glimpse for the window was instantly thrust close; but that glimpse had been sufficient, and they turned and left the street without a word; and it was not until they had come into a neighbouring thoroughfare that Ms. Sparkle at last turned and looked at her companion. They were both pale; and there was an answering horror in their eyes. “Celestia have mercy,” said Ms. Sparkle. But Ms. Applejack only nodded her head very seriously, and walked on once more in silence.
