Author's Note
I don't know where this came from. I really don't know. But it came along over three days.
It was interesting to write. Just to see a different perspective on Pinkie. It took me some time to nail down Cheese Sandwich's point of view. But I think it came out well.
Hope you all enjoy this 
I Know Things Now
Most ponies think that sanity is something given to you when you are born. That it is a gift to you from whomever you believe made you, and that you don't have to do anything to earn it. But they are wrong. Sanity is the small island we are on. The water lapping around that island is insanity. When we are born, we are immersed in that water. That's why babies cry, and toddlers scream and throw tantrums. They have not yet been taught sanity's ways. As they grow, they learn them, and pull themselves out of the water and onto the island. What ponies don't realize is that sanity is a choice. We choose it every day, every moment. Some ponies like to wade into those waters again, and some immerse themselves into it by choice.
There is a select group of ponies, though, that have two hooves in the water and their flank on land. Some might consider me a part of that group. They might even be correct. But I know one other pony who is there.
Pinkie Pie.
We’ve grown close over the years, to the point of being more than friends. The zany, happy, party going pony was so much more than what was beneath the surface. I had barely scratched the surface of who she was when I met her. Somepony seemingly one dimensional to everypony else is so much more to me. Even when we just met, and she cried when she thought she wouldn’t headline Rainbow Dash’s birthaversary bash, I saw there was more to her than met the eye.
Most ponies see the both of us as super duper party ponies. They think we can’t get sad, that we only live to make Ponies laugh and smile, that we are impenetrable walls of joy and excitement. They do not see that we too have feelings. My feelings that ponies didn’t see were mainly insecurities. I feared being invisible. I wanted ponies to notice me, to see me, to pay attention. I thought that from that standpoint, I could understand what she was going through. But the deeper I dug, the more I realized that wasn’t an issue for her. Her party pony persona did not cover up the fear of being invisible. No, not at all. Her persona covered up the fear of being forgotten, and being only loved for making parties.
She has never confided this in me directly. It was a knowledge I had had to cobble together over time. I’ve seen that part of her very rarely. It almost never comes out in full view for others to see. But I have caught glimpses of it. I have seen the light in her eyes replaced by a deep pit of fear. I have watched her head droop down in a way that makes me think she might flood places with her tears. The one time her fear came into complete view for me, so did her insanity.
I had come to Ponyville to assist in a party for the Cake twins. However, the day of the party, Pound and Pumpkin had to go to the hospital after taking a spill down the stairs. Pinkie had begged to go with them, but guests had already begun to arrive, and Mrs. Cake asked that she stay because the baked goods they were providing were good for business. It felt terrible to Pinkie, the party going on without the guests of honor. I had provided the entertainment while she tended to the back store, since she wasn’t exactly up to partying at the time. I had poked my head through the doors, intending to ask about the cake, and her hair was deflated, her normally curly hair straight as a line, and her coat, once vibrant, dulled.
I feel absolutely terrible for it, but at the time I was disturbed. It was me seeing her disillusioned, with no smiling filter between me and her fears. I briefly went out to ask her friends to keep the party going a few minutes and I went to talk with her. She had been holding a sack of flour and talking to it like it was Pound Cake. I went to her, put a hoof on her shoulder. Her eye was twitching when she looked at me. I told her that the foals would be fine, that they loved her, and they would need her to cheer them up when they got back, but that the ponies at that party needed her now. She smiled, and the poof returned to her mane, and Though her coat wasn’t quite as vibrant as usual, most of her color had returned. I thought the bit that hadn’t returned to her was the vestige of her upset that she held to her still. It did not return until the twins did after the party. The light came back into her eyes, and I loosened at the sight of her joy returning to her.
Even after, what I saw could not be unseen. Inside of her durable partying shell, Pinkie Pie was a mirror split in two. The larger half was happy and bright, but the sliver left was saddened and insecure. She was fragile, and perhaps broken to some. I never thought of her that way. She was simply herself. If she was broken at all, it was beautifully in my eyes. I had never had such respect for anypony as I have for her.
Sanity is indeed the island on which we are expected to live. Some ponies leave it and swim freely in the waters around it. Some stay on that island until they pass on. Others, like Pinkie Pie, have two hooves in the water and the rest on the island. She thinks she is alone on that island, but she is wrong. I am right there beside her, sometimes standing on the island, and other times sitting with her, so that she knows that she will never be alone.
I know things now, things that I had never thought of before. But somehow it’s better that I know them, so I can fight Pinkie’s demons with her.
