“Sunset, can I ask you a question?”
“Uh...sure, Pinkie.”
“Do you think that there are ponies that live out in space? Like, way way out in space?”
Sunset Shimmer blinked, staring down at Canterlot from one of the higher balconies in Canterlot Castle. It was the night of Hearth’s Warming, right near the tail end of the Hearth’s Warming Gala, and Sunset had—up until less than an hour ago—expected to see the entire city full of merriment and joy.
She hadn’t expected there to be this much fire.
Criminy, that was a lot of fire.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t be worrying about the fire brigades, Pinkie?” Sunset replied.
“Oh, they’ll be fine!” Pinkie giggled. “This isn’t the first time Canterlot’s been on fire.”
“Okay, but what about all of Canterlot being on fire?”
“Don’t be a silly filly, Sunset! It’s not all of Canterlot. See?” Pinkie pointed at what had likely been a restaurant only a few minutes ago, and which was now clearly a restaurant Flambé. “It takes a lot of heat to make stone supports like those burn. It’ll be fine! Just a little bald.”
Sunset took her eyes away from the not-so-merry blaze and stared at Pinkie, who looked very, very much like somepony blithely unaware of the repercussions of her actions. Too blithely unaware, honestly. “Is this why you were so excited I was invited to the Hearth’s Warming Gala? Is this why you wanted me to bring along the schematics of how fireworks worked on my side of the portal?”
“Of course!” Pinkie chirped, all but dancing in place with glee. “I know that you can’t have magic fireworks without a little magic over there, so I thought ‘Hey! What if we used your fancy fireworks plans to make the fireworks over here even more fancy, and then with a little bit of magic we could have the biggest, bestest fireworks of them all!’”
“I don’t mean having fireworks at a high-end, formal celebration in the middle of winter. I only wish I was having that conversation.” Sunset sighed and gestured over the balcony, as the medieval metropolis below them roasted like a lumpy, uneven chestnut in a searing blaze. “I mean this, Pinkie. I mean the fact that the historical nature of tonight will be defined less by a grand holiday display and more by the uncountable cost of all this property damage.”
“The...fire brigades will take care of it.” Pinkie’s ears drooped, but the smile she wore was a quite admirable attempt at feigning innocent happiness. “Everything will work out! It always does! Ooooh, that reminds me of a song—”
“It’s working out because Rarity’s down on the ground, getting all the city officials organized. It’s working out because Fluttershy’s running damage control on the Canterlot gardens and Twilight’s trying to teleport the contents of the ponyville reservoir above the most important government buildings and Applejack’s on the ground doing Celestia only knows what—”
As a massive chunk of ice materialized above the city and amidst the crackle of flames and the incessant screams of the ponies below, a distinctly folksy voice floated up from the chaos.
“Don’t you die on me, sugarcube! Think of your wife an’ children you’d be leaving behind!”
“Right, pulling ponies out of burning homes and trying to earn Equestria Today’s ‘Hero of the Year’ award. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash is off getting the factory ponies in Cloudsdale to put aside their respective holiday celebrations to immediately crank out an emergency blizzard and getting the Wonderbolts on rescue duty, Celestia and Luna are still off on their holiday vacation to the Grey Havens and I got stuck on messenger duty. To tell you about this.” Sunset waved a hoof at the holly jolly inferno currently trying its best to warm the cockles of everypony’s heart to ash and cinders. “I hope the message is getting through.”
“I…”
Pinkie’s smile didn’t fall off of her face entirely, nor did any part of her body sag—but some part of what made Pinkie, well, Pinkie quietly deflated.
“Okay!” Pinkie responded with a sniff. “I just need to grab eight things super duper quick and I’ll be right out! Pinkie Pie promise!” Humming tunelessly, Pinkie spun around and started trotting for the balcony exit.
And, Sunset realized, in a more sensible universe that would have been that. Pinkie would grab her things, the fire would be dealt with as quickly as possible and what was left of the Hearth’s Warming celebrations of everypony in Canterlot could be salvaged. It would be a disastrous Hearth’s Warming all around, but at least it wouldn’t be as disastrous as it could have been.
In a more sensible universe. Which was to say, in a universe where Sunset didn’t find herself feeling bad for Pinkie.
Criminy, she felt bad about it.
...Dang it.
“Hey, Pinkie?”
“Mmhmm?” Pinkie replied, hoof on the handle of the balcony door.
“Why do you want to know if there are ponies out in space?”
“Well, I mean, I don’t have to know.” Pinkie giggled, but there was barely any warmth in it—certainly not enough to mask its sadness, anyway. “It’s kind of a silly question, anyway.”
“Does it have something to do with the fireworks?”
Pinkie froze. Slowly, she turned around. Sunset, trying her best to look as accommodating and understanding as she could amidst a backdrop of roaring flames, patted vaguely at the railing next to her.
“...Maybe.” Pinkie started to walk towards Sunset as she stared up at the sky. “What do you think, Sunset? Are there space ponies?”
“I don’t know, Pinkie.” Sunset followed Pinkie’s gaze up towards the night sky.
Pinkie sighed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”
“More than you’d hate the answer ‘no?’ ”
“If I knew nopony else was out there, then at least I could stop trying.”
The implication hung in the air, unanswered. A faint breeze kicked up the tattered remnants of a firework shell and sent it skittering between the balcony rails and into the fire.
“It’s dark up there, Sunny.”
“I know, Pinkie.”
“I don’t.” Pinkie shook her head. “It looks dark from here, but we have lights that help us see at night and a sun that helps us see at day. They may have stars up in the sky, but I can’t even imagine how dark it must be if you didn’t have stars, or a sun like ours, or even lights during nighttime! Like a darkness so big that even the idea of light doesn’t exist…”
“Pinkie, you know that the sun is a star, right?”
“Maybe in your world, Sunset. Maybe in a world where there aren’t any princesses and there isn’t any unicorn magic or twitchy tails or yovidaphones and nothing makes any sense, but in my world I don’t really know what a star really is. I’ve never seen one up close. And if they really are just as little as they look from down here, then…”
Pinkie shivered.
“It’s got to be really dark up there. I can’t even imagine how dark it is.”
Sunset looked back at Pinkie. “So you’re trying to make it brighter down here?”
“Even if they’re really far away. Maybe if I make enough light, they’ll be able to see it. Maybe they’ll know that there are other ponies out there who want to meet them and be friends with them and party with ponies like Pinkie, and maybe...even if they couldn’t reach us, that might still be enough. To see a little bit of light. To know that there are ponies out there that exist.”
“You thought the fireworks would be bright enough?” Sunset said, voice dropping to a half-whisper.
“I can’t think of anything brighter or happier that I can send into the sky. And I can’t think of any way to make it better. Any of this better.” Pinkie turned towards Sunset as her bottom lip trembled. “I didn’t want anypony to get hurt. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Sunny, I’m so sorr—”
A hug caught off the apology.
Pinkie blinked. Sunset was wrapping her hooves around her, muzzle tucked just over her shoulder, squeezing with the gentle pressure that only close friends knew.
“Shhh,” Sunset whispered. “Shhh. You’re not alone.”
Pinkie sniffed. “I thought you just said...”
“That I don’t know, right. And I don’t. But that’s not what I meant—I meant that you’re not the only pony that worries that there might be other ponies all alone out there.”
“Do you…” Pinkie trailed off for a moment. “But if you don’t know if they’re out there, then…”
“I know the Pinkie Pie on my side of the portal. I know that there are seaponies like Princess Skystar in far-off places like Seaquestria. There are all sorts of ponies in all sorts of forms from all sorts of places, and that includes ponies who want everypony else to be happy. Ponies who are full of liveliness and fun and a love of parties, even if they aren’t technically ponies. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
Pinkie’s face scrunched up in confusion. If nothing else, it was a step up from shame and misery. “I...I don’t know, Sunny.”
“If there are ponies like you in other places, then I bet they’re trying as hard as you do to reach out to us. I don’t think they’d want us to be lonely, either. Even out there in the darkness, I imagine that they want to reach out to you and talk and make friends and party with you in their own way. Ponyville, Seaquestria, way out in the stars...a bunch of things are different, but not all of them are.”
Pinkie cracked a faint smile. “So if there’s something out there, then…”
“Then they’ll be trying to talk to you, too,” Sunset replied.
A fresh breeze brought with it another gust of snow.
“You won’t be alone. And even if it doesn’t happen right now, then one of us will figure out how to make it work eventually. It’s only a matter of time.”
“And if there’s nopony else out there, then…?”
Sunset pulled away, smiling. “Then the other ponies here will know how hard you’re trying. I imagine there are some that are really thankful that you’re trying to do what they’d never have a chance to pull off. It’s not for nothing, Pinkie. The good things ponies try to do never are.”
Pinkie sniffed again and wiped the corner of one of her eyes, but her smile was genuine. “Thanks, Sunny. I...I think I needed that.”
“Everypony needs a little reminder they have friends now and again. Especially during the holid—”
A huge gust blew past both of them, kicking up a thick spray of snowflakes in Sunset’s face. Coughing, Sunset wiped her eyes and looked up. “Gah! What in Equestria…?”
Beneath a now-starless blot of sky was Rainbow Dash, buoyed forward by the massive blizzard that followed in her wake. In front of her, a good deal of Twilight Sparkle’s hunk of reservoir ice was sweating droplets of water onto the diminishing blaze below, and from beneath both of them came the faint echo of Applejack rattling off every cliche line of heroism known to ponykind.
“Oh. I guess that’s what.” Sunset sighed in relief as she turned back towards Pinkie. “Looks like Equestria’s saved. Probably.”
Pinkie’s smile turned sheepish. “Oops.”
“You might need to say ‘oops’ to Rainbow Dash and Twilight, too.” Sunset turned back towards the fire. “And there’s probably a friendship lesson to be learned about this somewhere.”
“Does ‘make sure that if you’re going to use super dangerous explodey stuff that you try to use safety precautions so that everything around you doesn’t explode’ count as a friendship lesson?”
“Ask the princess of friendship about that one.” Sunset chuckled as she looked over at Pinkie. “In the meantime, got any idea of how to make up for this?”
Pinkie stared at the fire intently, as if lost in thought. Admittedly, it was for half a second, but that was still half a second longer than expected.
“...I’m going to need a yovidaphone, a hay cart, the glass bottle full of green stuff labeled “Zecora” on it from the kitchen, a songbook full of Hearth’s Warming carols and Griffonstone’s best scone recipe. And, um...do you think you could get a bunch of paper and colored pencils while I get everything else, Sunny?”
“Uh, sure. But how are paper and colored pencils going to fix everything?”
Pinkie giggled. “They aren’t, silly! I should be able to fix everything else on my own. But, um, I should probably be ready to write Happy-Hearth’s-Warming-and-I’m-sorry-I-burned-down-your-house-and-or-workplace cards to everypony in Canterlot as soon as possible. I wouldn’t want them to think I’m leaving them in the dark, either.”
