You can never find your way back home.
Pinkie heard a story when she was young. It was almost her favorite.
Once upon a time, there was an earth pony who was always sick. All she could do was lie around in bed all day and dream. She could never go outside to play, wasn’t well enough to go to school, and never had one single friend. Nopony wanted to be friends with you if all you ever did was fall asleep.
But one day a pegasus from a faraway town nopony ever heard of moved in next door. She brought the earth pony strange roots and told her to chew on it. They tasted horrible, but the bad taste kept her awake longer than ever before and slowly she started to get better.
Her parents were so happy she could walk around again and even go outside now! But the other ponies her age still weren’t friends with her. They all loved each other and there was no room for her. She didn’t know any of their games or jokes and couldn’t fit in with them.
But the pegasus stayed by her side. She taught the earth pony games nopony else had ever heard of, that only the two of them would know. She was very patient with her sick friend, letting her learn slowly, coming to visit her every day, and pushing her to do new things.
‘Let’s play outside your room’, she’d say, pushing the earth pony out of her room. Then later ‘let’s play in the backyard’.
Let’s go down the street! Let’s go downtown! Let’s go to the far edge of town! Let’s go to the fields outside of town! Always showing her something new and amazing at each step. It was wonderful!
But then, one day…
‘Let’s go into the Everfree Forest’.
Just one step! It’s a game! A test of courage!
Just a few more steps in, one step wasn’t so hard. Let’s play just a little ways in. Let’s see how far in we can go without getting scared. Let’s get lost on purpose and our game can be finding our way out!
And that’s how the earth pony got lost in the woods, alone with her friend in the dark. And the pegasus smiled as the sun went down and said she wanted to share a secret.
She showed the earth pony her true form, a monstrous pony with bat-like wings and horrible fangs, and told her she was really a monster from deep in the Everfree Forest. She took a fruit from one of the trees and offered it to the earth pony, telling her that this was the fruit of eternal youth.
‘Every fruit in this forest is poisonous and will kill you with a single bit,’ she said, ‘save this one. If you eat this, you’ll never get old and the poison of the forest can’t hurt you anymore. Only one of my kind can find this fruit, but I’ll give one to you because we’re friends.’
The earth pony screamed and told her friends she knew the fruit would turn her into a disgusting monster like her friend was! It was cursed and you could never find your way back home if you ate it! Eternal youth itself was a curse and how dare she offer it! She’d never eat it!
And she threw the fruit back in her former friend’s face.
And the monster, the vampire, that had been her best friend for so long, had given her health, freedom, and friendship for the first time, turned on her. She jumped on the earth pony and gobbled her up.
And the earth pony never got home either way.
That was almost Pinkie’s favorite story. She loved hearing about the earth pony getting to experience everything for the first time and go on amazing adventures with her mysterious friend. She loved it up to the end.
The ending was too mean! She hated it!
Pinkie had no choice but to make up her own ending instead. The earth pony shouldn’t have been so rude to her vampire friend after everything the vampire did for her. In fact, in Pinkie’s version, she just ate the fruit and stayed in the forest with her super-best friend. And that way they live happily ever after.
She didn’t need to go back home.
There was a superstition that writing stories about vampires down was bad luck, that you could never get rid of a vampire once you wrote their story down. These stories were only ever to be spoken. Pinkie believed that superstition and that was exactly why, in the dark of the night when she felt the most awake, she used to write her version of that story down on paper despite knowing how much trouble she’d get in if she got caught.
But it never worked. The vampire never showed up and Pinkie remained sick through her entire childhood. She never got to go to school or play outside and she never had a single friend. She just lay in bed for years and years wishing some magical friend would show up.
But now Pinkie was an adult and knew things didn't work like that at all. If you wanted a happy ending, you had to make it yourself, just like how she had to rewrite that entire story.
No vampire ever showed up to give her medicine from the forest, but Pinkie had found a way to get better herself! And no vampire would just show up to be her friend, so Pinkie would go and find them instead.
And that’s why she was here in the forest, to try and make her happy ending happen.
Maybe there was one other reason too…
But Pinkie didn’t want to focus on anything like that right now!
It'd actually only been two weeks since Pinkie finally started recovering from her illness and left the hospital. Her legs were a bit sore cause she still wasn’t used to walking around this much, but other than that Pinkie felt amazing. Now that she was staying out of the light, Pinkie was getting so much stronger every day! Yesterday, she managed to stay awake for twelve hours straight without needing a nap! It felt like she had superpowers now! Like there was no end to her energy!
That’s why Pinkie hummed her way through the darkness of the forest, the tent she brought to protect her from the sun clanking along with her tune as she walked deeper and deeper.
The first part of the forest had way more buildings in it than you'd expect a forest to have because where she entered was a town that was overrun by the Everfree Forest. She was a good deal deeper now, the buildings were getting scarce, the trees were taller and the darkness was getting deeper. But Pinkie loved the dark now that she knew it was the light making her sick all along, now that she knew what illness she'd had this whole time. It wasn’t hard to hum merrily here.
There were monsters in the forest, but a lot less than she thought there’d be. One thing Pinkie always had going for her was keen senses. Even back when she was sick, Pinkie’s hearing and smell were far better than any other pony she knew, good enough to listen to everything throughout the whole house.
Now that she was better, they’d gone up yet another level. She could hear things moving around in the woods and could smell if an animal had been through recently. And so far, that was enough to avoid every monster. But the worst monsters were closer to the center of the forest.
Every so often, she’d stop her humming and sniff around to maybe get some clues. This time, she smelt something a little too familiar.
That was clearly the scent of a pony! But entering the Everfree Forest was forbidden. That meant it was either the scent of a legendary adventurer or a vampire. And who knew which was more unlikely these days? But even if it was an adventurer, they’d have to know where Pinkie could find an actual vampire!
“Hello!” Pinkie yelled out into the darkness. She wasn’t sure what direction to go in. “My name is Pinkie Pie! Do you want to be friends?!”
And she listened carefully.
Something moved in the darkness above her, something with wings. It moved closer and landed on a branch high above her.
“Hi!” Pinkie turned to where she heard it land and waved up at it.
Whatever it was looked down at Pinkie and she saw them for the briefest flash! Glowing eyes! Her heart swelled up. This was seriously maybe a vampire!
But it only glanced down at her for the briefest moment before flying off again. Pinkie listened carefully and followed it.
“Wait!” Pinkie called after it, panting already. “I won’t hurt you! Come back! Please!”
Pinkie ran after it as fast as she could, which wasn’t that fast. She really needed to take up jogging. But still, she kept running faster and faster. In desperation, she threw her tent off onto the ground just to run faster. Running into a vampire wasn’t something that happened twice, you could get another tent but you couldn't get another vampire. She had to catch it no matter what.
She really didn’t think she was fast enough to catch up with it, but before long it turned around and flew back to her!
The vampire landed right in front of Pinkie and hissed loudly in her face, baring its fangs at her!
Pinkie was so excited! She smiled wide and jumped up and down as the vampire hissed at her! Then, the moment the vampire finished, Pinkie hissed back at her as loudly as she could.
The vampire took a step back and ducked her head, unsure what to make of Pinkie now.
“Did I do that right?” Pinkie bobbed up and down slightly. “I’ve been practicing for years and years!”
The vampire considered the question for a little while, giving Pinkie a chance to look her over. She was exactly what a vampire was supposed to look like, one of the ones with bat wings! Fuzzy, tufted ears, slitted, kitty-cat ears that glowed brilliantly in the dark, thick fur, and of course those razor-sharp fangs.
She had a spikey mane stiped with six different shades of blue and one shade of white while her fur was a dark blue. Pinkie noticed her cutie mark, a lightning bolt, with the same coloration as her mane.
The vampire was dressed funny. Her ears were pierced in three places with little metal loops in them. Her eyebrow was pierced too with a similar ring. A spike choker was around her neck and two similar ones around her forehooves. She wore a tattered cape with a design printed on the back, three blue diamonds Pinkie saw after crooking her neck around.
“Why are you here?” she eventually asked.
“I wanted to meet a vampire!” Pinkie answered immediately. “And here you are! Hurray! Hi! My name is Pinkie Pie! What’s yours?”
“That’s not a good reason to come out here,” said the vampire. “If you do stupid things for stupid reasons, you’re going to die. This deep in the forest is dangerous! It’s no place for that! Now leave.”
The vampire turned to leave, but Pinkie jumped after her, darting in her way.
“But I won’t die if I make friends with you!” Pinkie said. “Cause you look like you would never let your friend die. That’s my survival strategy! So do you want to be friends?”
The vampire lowered her head and prowled around Pinkie in a circle, staring at her like her offer of friendship was the strangest thing in the world.
“Haven’t you heard stories about how we eat your kind?” She opened her mouth wide to show Pinkie her fangs. They were sharp enough to do all the gobbling they wanted.
Pinkie nodded.
“But you know,” said Pinkie, “I always thought the earth ponies in those stories are the bad guys anyway. Cause the vampire always does so much for them and is such a great friend for almost the whole story! But then in the end the earth pony turns around and gives this huge speech about how much vampires suck right to their faces? Of course they get gobbled up! It’s like, what were they expecting?”
Pinkie opened her forelegs wide, offering a hug.
“But I bet vampires are actually really nice!” Pinkie smiled at her. “I think as long as I’m nice to you, we can be friends and I won’t get eaten!”
Her new vampire friend was listening to her carefully, watching her suspiciously. She must have gotten yelled at by a lot of other earth ponies if the stories were at all based on reality.
“If you want to live, go that way.” The vampire pointed in a northish direction. “You aren’t far away from a town. It’s safe there and it’s not safe here. Don’t follow me again or you’ll die.”
The vampire flew away in the exact opposite direction she’d just pointed in. She flew off much faster this time, too fast for Pinkie to keep up with, flying nearly out of sight, but only nearly.
A long distance away the vampire stopped and turned around to watch Pinkie, her eyes just tiny pinpricks of light far off in the distance. A normal pony would have missed even that much, but Pinkie’s senses were keen. She could pick up on even the tiniest little details like this.
The vampire wanted her to follow! Or at least wanted to see if Pinkie would.
Pinkie ran after her without hesitation and didn’t slow down until she got there. She really wasn’t used to running like that! Pinkie nearly collapsed coughing and panting by the time she got to where the vampire was. Her legs needed a nap and she felt like her lungs needed to be doused with water to put the fire out. But she made it.
The vampire didn’t fly away again, instead sat quietly while she waited for Pinkie to recover enough to stand up straight again.
She was standing up high, on a partially collapsed stone wall which must have been part of an enormous building a long time ago.
And she wasn’t alone, either! There was a second vampire sitting next to her now, her eyes glowing blue. This one was a little different. She didn’t have bat wings but did have a horn.
When she was still around, Granny Pie was the one who knew the most about vampires and would tell Pinkie stories nopony else knew. She said there were two types of vampires, the bat ponies who looked like pegasi, and the thestrals who looked like unicorns. Pinkie always believed her stories were the true ones!
“This one is weak, Rarity.” The bat vampire looked over to the thestral one. “Somepony so weak has no business being this brave. But I don’t think we can just ditch her. I have no idea how she even made it this deep alive.”
“Do you want me to take you back home, dear?” Rarity spoke more softly than her friend. “I can. I will.”
Pinkie shook her head wildly, still panting too hard to say any words. Home was the absolute last place she ever wanted to go.
"No! I-" Pinkie coughed. "I want to stay here."
“You know,” said Rarity, “this is our forest. Your kind isn’t exactly welcome here.”
“I know! I respect that!” Pinkie bowed to what she decided must be the head vampire. “This place belongs to you. That’s why I’m asking your permission to stay here. Please? I’ll follow all of your rules!”
“Well, then! You’re certainly giving me more respect than any earth pony I’ve met,” said Rarity. “And you’re too brave to chase away. My name is Rarity and this is Rainbow Dash. What’s your name?”
“Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie lifted her head.
“Well, Ms. Pie, there’s usually only one thing that gives ponies the courage to come this far into the forest.” Rarity stepped over to the edge of the wall and leaned down. “Did you want me to show you the fruit of eternal youth? Is that why you’re here?”
“Well-“ Pinkie needed to be careful! She knew that vampires got all kinds of offended if you didn’t share your food with them, or else turned your nose up at theirs. “If you bring me one, I’ll eat it. But that’s not what I came looking for! I’m looking for friends! I was hoping I could be friends with you?”
“Are there no ponies where you’re from to be friends with?” Rarity asked.
“No.” Pinkie shook her head. She could feel her ears drooping down. “They- they lied to me. They told me I was always tired and sick because I have a heart condition, but that wasn’t true. I actually have something called phantasmagorical mitochondria. I’m fine as long as I stay out of the light. I was sick for so long but got better as soon as I figured that out! I could have been healthy my whole life, and my parents knew all of that, but I was always stuck in bed because- because they lied!”
And they lied because they wanted her to stay sick. It was even crueler than the ending to that story.
She felt the tears coming back but made herself smile. She covered up the bad thoughts with good ones, reminded herself that she was healthy now, that she could have friends, that not everypony was like them!
“But see, that means I’m already like you!” Pinkie lifted her head back up and smiled brightly as the half-formed tear fell. “I can’t go out during the day either or I’ll get sick again! We’re the same! We could totally be friends!”
They were completely silent as Pinkie made her plea, Rarity frowning gently. The other one, Rainbow Dash, looked angry now, her ears pinned back and her frown less gentle. What if she was offended by Pinkie saying she was one of them?
Dash noticed Pinkie getting nervous and quickly forced her own smile, raising her head and ears.
“I’m not angry at you, dork!” Dash laughed. “I get where you’re coming from and I don’t blame you for coming here anymore. But living here isn’t easy for an earth pony and it only gets worse deeper in. The monsters hate the way you smell, and all the plants are poisonous to you. It isn’t easy getting enough food to survive. You might not be able to eat every day.”
“But there is one fruit I can eat, right?” Pinkie asked, hoping it didn’t come off like she was just trying to get the fruit of eternal youth.
“Yes.” Rarity smiled. “If you eat it, you stop aging and become immune to the poison of the forest. But do you know what else happens?”
“You can never find your way back home.” Pinkie gave a solemn nod. “A curse makes it so you get lost in the woods forever. And even if you do find the way out, a second curse makes it so you can never find your family or house again! And even if you do find them, a third curse makes it so your family won’t remember who you are! And if you make them remember, then a fourth curse makes them all disappear and erases all evidence you ever existed!”
The two of them laughed again. Pinkie hoped they were laughing with her and not at her.
“My, my. That is a lot of curses, isn’t it?” Rarity chuckled and turned to her friend. “You know, I bet in another hundred years it’ll be thousands of curses! But you there, you believe you’ll get four curses if you eat the fruit. And yet you said you’d eat it anyway?”
“Yes!” Pinkie nodded. “Cause that’s just one curse four times if you think about it! Also, I kind of don’t have a home to go back to anymore. So if you think about it, I’m immune to the curse! Right? No downside for Pinkie!”
“Ha!” Dash laughed again. “Guess you got us on a technicality!”
“Come up here.” Rarity beckoned to Pinkie. “We won’t eat you or anything like that. I promise.”
Pinkie jumped at the invitation. She ran over to the wall and climbed up the crumbling side of it. Now she was standing at the same height as them but on the other end of the wall. The two of them sat together, watching Pinkie with their glowing eyes.
Now that she was closer, Pinkie could see that Rarity dressed like her friend. She didn’t wear a cape, but she did have even more piercings with her eyebrows pierced in three places in total. Her earrings had little skulls on them. Rarity had a lot of skulls on her, wearing four necklaces with skulls attached to them and several bracelets with even more.
The skulls on her bracelet jingled as she beckoned Pinkie to come even closer. Pinkie took a few steps forward and then remembered something important.
“Um! I have presents for you!” Pinkie grabbed her saddlebag, set it down, and reached inside.
“Slow!” Dash commanded her, snapping back to suspicion. “Take it out slow.”
“Don’t worry! I follow the rules!” Pinkie took her present out very slowly, showing them it was just a stuffed dog with its head cut off, stuffing poking from the gaping wound. “This is Mr. Fluffles. He used to be my absolute favorite toy when I was a filly! I cut his head off!”
Pinkie slid the late Mr. Fluffles over to them, beaming happily.
For some strange reason, the two of them looked disturbed by the present. Rarity studied it with concern, tapping her chin as she looked down at the decapitated toy. Dash prowled around it and gave it a suspicious poke.
Pinkie kept smiling and tapped her hooves together nervously, starting to worry maybe she did this wrong.
“Okay, I give up!” Dash sat down and threw her hooves in the air. “Is this some weird mud pony thing I don’t understand?”
“No!” Pinkie stood up defensively. “This is a weird vampire thing you don’t understand! Though, actually! If it’s a vampire thing, why don’t you understand it?”
“I imagine somepony’s been busy making things up, dear.” Rarity looked Pinkie over with an amused smile. “Though I am sincerely curious now. What exactly did they tell you that made you think I want decapitated stuffed animals?”
“Yeah, I’ll bite.” Dash smiled, showing off her fangs. “Pun intended.”
“Oh! Sorry!” Pinkie bowed her head. “In the stories I heard, if a vampire gets mad at you, they come to take something or somepony you love away. But if you destroy something you like yourself and leave it out in the forest for them, that makes them happy again and they leave you alone! So I thought if I broke something I loved it’d be like a- a peace offering?”
Both of them laughed, Dash far more wildly.
“Well I appreciate the sentiment.” Rarity giggled.
“You’re a total weirdo!” Dash pointed at her smiling. “And I love weirdos! What was your name again?”
Dash leaned forward, excited to hear it this time.
“Pinkie Pie!”
“Well, Pinks, you can come sit next to me.” Dash patted the ground between her and Rarity.
This was amazing! Pinkie’s plan was working!
Pinkie rushed over to them and took her seat with the utmost excitement! She looked at the vampire on her left, then the one on her right, smiling brightly at both.
“You got anything else weird in there?” Dash tried peeking inside her saddle bag.
“Uh-huh!” Pinkie nodded and reached inside, looking for something weird. “I also heard that like, luck is reversed for you guys! Things that are good luck for us are bad luck for you and things that are bad luck for us are good luck for you!”
Pinkie took her next few presents out slowly, remembering the vampire rule. She took out a short story about vampires she’d written down, a clock, a desecrated little Celestia figurine, and a bottle of melted snow.
Thankfully they looked a lot more amused by this round of gifts than the last one.
“So bad luck charms are good luck to me, hm?” Rarity gave her little skull earrings a flick. “I have been drawn to that aesthetic lately. Maybe you’re on to something with this one.”
“Who the buck comes up with this stuff?” Dash laughed, looking over the Celestia figurine. “I like that you gave her a little mustache, though!”
“I’m absolutely fascinated by how much your ideas about us have changed.” Rarity read over the short story Pinkie just gave her. “How much more ‘information’ do you have about us, exactly?”
“Oh, I know hundreds of stories about vampires! Thousands! Millions!” Pinkie pumped her hoof in the air, then drew it back down. “Okay, maybe not millions. But a lot!”
“I think I’ve made up my mind then.” Rarity held out her hoof to Pinkie. “If you really have nowhere else to go, you can follow us for now. But in exchange, I want more of these stories. If you tell me a hundred of your stories, then I’ll tell you one of mine. Does that sound fair to you?”
“That sounds like the fairest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life!” Pinkie nodded so hard.
She couldn’t believe this was actually happening! She was friendshipping! These two were basically her friends now!
“Let’s go!” Pinkie was too happy to stay seated. She jumped up to her feet and pointed off to the south. “Magical adventure begins!”
“You don’t wanna ask where we’re going first?” Dash cocked her head.
“Nah.” Pinkie shook her head. But she did put her hoof down, realizing she had no idea what direction they’d be going in. “I got no direction in my life right now! Wherever you’re going is fine with me! In fact, don’t tell me! It’ll be more fun if it’s a surprise!”
Dash laughed again. Every time, Pinkie was getting more sure Dash was laughing with her.
“I’m starting to like you, Pinkie!” Dash gave her a playful hit on the back. “You’re my kind of mare!”
“I don’t think we’re going anywhere tonight, though,” said Rarity. “The sun is coming up soon and from the sound of things, you don’t like it any more than we do.”
“No way! The sun is gross and dumb! It’s a big ball of stupid!” Pinkie looked back toward the direction she just came from. “Oh no! But I dropped my tent back there! I was using that to stay out of the sun while I sleep."
“It’s a bit darker down there anyway.” Rarity pointed down to the ground, to some stairs leading underground that Pinkie had just now noticed. “That’s where we’re sleeping today. But before that, maybe we have time for one of your stories now?”
“I can tell you my favorite one,” Pinkie offered. “But it’s not really authentic! I didn’t like the ending, so I changed it. Is that okay?”
Rarity nodded and lay down to listen.
“Once upon a time.” Pinkie smiled, feeling tears in her eyes. “There was a pony who was always sick.”
Author's Note
This story continues in Final Corruption. Twilight will investigate the fruit of eternal youth!
