How to be Happy

The sun beat down into a bed of fog and cast the little village of Trotsylvania in an otherworldly glow. It was the kind of day where you could hear further than you could see, and even in the tiny town with only two streets, it would be easy to get lost if you didn’t know where you were going.

The town was busy, full of creatures eager to take advantage of the fair weather, and bolstered even further by the light but constant breeze that more than made the heat bearable. The town square was absolutely packed, filled to the brim with creatures listening to the town’s crier relay the news of the day. He spoke loudly, having to speak over the creatures using the space to socialize, and that, in turn, made those creatures raise their volume as well. The result was a clamor that could be heard all throughout town, but really, most days were like that. It was just something the townsfolk had gotten used to.

Fluttershy, however, had not even begun to get used to it.

The quiet was one of many things from Ponyville that she hadn’t properly appreciated before. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Trotsylvania, it was a lovely place and she knew that in time she would come to see it as home, but she’d spent only a few months in her new house, and that just couldn’t compare to the years of life spent in Ponyville. She was too used to how she’d lived before. Trotsylvania was just… Different.

Still, as Fluttershy pushed her way through the rear of the crowds with her bags full of groceries, she found a smile on her face. She hated the noise, the crowds, the heat, but the community was different. It was something special, and she got to be a part of it. She wasn’t hidden away in the outskirts shielding herself from society. That part of her life was behind her now, and she’d never look back.

She still gave a sigh of relief when she broke from the crowds and slipped into the castle grounds, though.

From inside the town, Trotsyvania was, for as much as it mattered, a long, thin rectangle of a village. It was surrounded on all sides by high defensive walls, and between those walls was a clutter of homes so dense and jumbled that they made a labyrinth with their alleyways, and that labyrinth held the majority of the town’s citizens. The long, organized strip of buildings that made the street in the middle was occupied mostly by the affluent, be they frequently visited businesses or just creatures in high standing.

The town did have a second street, though, that ran straight across the other. The intersection made the busy town square, but the street itself connected the town’s two large, well-guarded gates.

One gate led outside, into the treacherous bog beyond the wall. Mostly it sat unused, but in recent months it had begun to see traffic again.

The other gate led to what truly made the majority of Trotsylvania.

While the township was, seemingly, just a thin strip of homes, the outer wall stretched into a shape much closer to a square. The vast space left by the discrepancy made up the castle grounds, which utterly dwarfed the town.

As one might expect, the castle grounds held a castle.

At least, “castle” was the closest word to what it was. It had clearly once been a castle, but it had never stopped growing. New wings were added on haphazardly, turrets jutted out in ways that seemed impossible, and entire buildings were connected only by thin strips of hallways. It was a patchwork formed over millennia, and it looked the part.

Fluttershy lived on these grounds, but not in the castle. She had a humble little home just inside the gates that she shared with Pinkie Pie, the love of her life.

It was an awkward little hut, still partially under renovation, but by this point, they’d nearly finished their work. The fresh, clean wood slats had half a coat of tan paint that matched the soft green of the door nicely. The roof had been completely remade, the windows were perfect, and hundreds of flowers bloomed around the house. It was, by all accounts, a perfect little home.

It wasn’t quite right, though.

Closer examination started to reveal oddities throughout the design. Most prominent were the windows, which weren’t windows at all, but rather elaborate picture frames. The paintings held in them were so realistic as to be almost indistinguishable from life, but the panes all had little differences that gave them away, different furniture or off-color walls.

Past that, the strangeness got harder to pin down. The dimensions of the house just felt wrong to look at, they left the observer feeling off-kilter. There was the cellar door, with its old rusted metal bar that held it firmly shut, that sat in stark contrast to the renovations done to the main house. The rafters and bushes seemed far too filled with cobwebs, and even the shadows felt like they fell the wrong way. Nothing about the building looked right.

The strangeness was all built into the house by its original occupant, only ever known as The Artist. She designed it thousands of years ago, and it sat untouched since her death until Fluttershy decided to move in. They could have removed the quirks in the renovations, of course, but Fluttershy decided against it. She wanted to respect The Artist’s vision, even if much of it was lost to time.

Once she was free from the crowds, Fluttershy lightened up considerably. Her shoulders untensed, and she stood up from a hunch she hadn’t realized she’d adopted. If not for how long she’d already been out, she would have considered staying outside and resting in the nice weather, but she was desperate to get off her hooves.

She did make a mental note that they should hang up a hammock, though.

She opened the door quietly and made her way inside, not wanting to disturb Pinkie if she was asleep, and started for the kitchen to unpack the groceries.

Their home was interesting, to say the least. It was the first place Fluttershy and Pinkie had decorated together, and the result was… Bold. The majority of it was pink, of course, but instead of being accented with the blues and yellows Pinkie would normally go for, it was mostly set against dark black, the result of Fluttershy still trying to pin down an aesthetic she enjoyed. The result was a look that they both agreed they would change one day, but neither of them had made any move to actually do that.

The house was a lot bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside. It was two stories, plus the basement that the door outside led to, although there was no access to that from inside the house. The ground floor was divided into only three rooms, one of which was a humble little bathroom, and another which was a humble little kitchen with a table just big enough for the two of them to eat at. The rest of the floor was the living room, and even with all of Fluttershy’s knick-knacks and the vast volume of party supplies Pinkie insisted on stringing up, it was still too big for them to fill. The floor space was almost entirely free, as they only had a small couch and a single comfy chair, and Fluttershy had left most of her animal supplies behind for the creatures of Ponyville to make use of. There was a heavily used, deeply smoke-stained fireplace, and near that was a bed and play area for Angel, but that did nothing to fill the huge sea of space that was their living room.

The second floor was a very different story. The entirety of it was devoted to the master bedroom, but even with all that room, they’d managed to make it crowded. The huge bed that sat in the center didn’t help, with its frilly pink canopy that hung over dark gray and black quilting. The rest of the room was stuffed with, well, everything. They’d both had very full bedrooms back home, with shelves and wardrobes and vanities all packed with a lifetime of things, and neither of them wanted to leave any of it behind, so all of it was brought along. They’d mixed the things about to stop the room from feeling divided, but the pink of Pinkie’s furniture didn’t match at all with the subdued wood that made up Fluttershy’s. That was yet another thing they both agreed they should change, although this time they were both actually trying to think of a solution.

The cellar was, as far as they knew, empty. They’d lived there for months, but neither of them had worked up the courage to go into it.

Once everything was put away, Fluttershy set down her bags and gently floated up the stairs to check on Pinkie.

The canopy over the bed was shut, so she could only see shadows through it, but she did see Pinkie there, breathing softly. Fluttershy smiled softly and approached the bed.

When she opened the curtains and looked in, though, her face sank.

Pinkie was there, but she wasn’t asleep, and she didn’t look good. She was lying face down under the covers, and her mane had lost its volume and covered her face. Her ears drooped sadly, and her pillow was stained with tears.

Fluttershy reached out a hoof and gently touched her shoulder. “Pinkie?”

Pinkie jumped with a start and looked up. “F-Fluttershy?” She quickly wiped her eyes and tried to force a smile. “H-Hi! Um, what’s up?”

Fluttershy frowned and settled down next to Pinkie. “That’s what I should be asking,” she said. “What’s the matter?”

Pinkie looked away from her. “I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I’m here for you to talk to,” Fluttershy said.

There was a long pause before Pinkie spoke again.

“Are you?”

Fluttershy was shocked. “Of course! I love you, Pinkie, I’ll always be willing to listen to you.”

“I know that,” Pinkie said, looking back at her, “but you’re… You’re not…”

She sniffed hard, and Fluttershy frowned. She knew exactly what Pinkie was talking about. She was reminded of it every time she glanced in a mirror, and it was the whole reason they’d moved to Trotsylvania in the first place.

A few months ago, something happened that changed her. It had drained the color from the bottom half of her mane, and it filled her eyes with crackling shadows. She had no pupils or irises, not anymore, just pits of darkness that were surrounded by channels of pulsating black. One glance at her, and it was impossible not to notice that something about her was different.

What happened had made her stronger, but it came with costs. One of those costs was Fluttershy herself, and she’d paid it in full. None of them really knew what that meant, but all her friends knew she’d paid that cost.

Clearly, Pinkie knew it all too well.

“Pinkie,” Fluttershy said, slowly and calmly, “I’m alright. You can see me, you can feel me. I’m here.”

“But for how long?” Pinkie sniffed hard. “What if I wake up one day and you’re just gone?”

“I won’t let that happen,” Fluttershy told her. “I promise.”

“You can’t promise that, though! You don’t know, you’re just… Just lying to make me feel better.”

“You’re right, I can’t know,” Fluttershy said, “but it’s what I believe. You know how hard I’d fight to come back to you.”

“Yeah, but…” Pinkie sighed and laid her head on her hooves. “Only if you can.”

Fluttershy frowned and squeezed Pinkie tight. “I’m sorry you’re scared,” she whispered, “but I’m here now, right? You know that as long as I’m here, you’ll always have me. You just have to try to believe that I won’t go away.”

Pinkie leaned against Fluttershy weakly and nodded. “Mm-hm.”

“Is there anything you can think of that would help?”

“I… I wanna go to my thinking spot,” Pinkie said. “Just… Be alone with myself for a bit.”

“Of course.” Fluttershy nodded. “Why don’t we go spend a few days in Ponyville? We can see our friends, you can go think, and if we have time I could even try to find somepony to look after the animals.”

“Yeah, okay,” Pinkie mumbled. “That sounds nice.”

Pinkie didn’t go to Ponyville from the train station. She let Fluttershy go ahead, but she wanted to get to her thinking spot as soon as possible, so she turned and walked straight into the Everfree Forest.

Luckily, it didn’t take her too long to find. Before long she was walking down into a huge, glowing cave.

She knew the cave well. She’d known it for a long time, and while it caused her trouble in the past, it was also a great place for her to unravel her thoughts. The perfect reflection of herself she saw in the mirror pool was like a window into her very self, and given the right tools, nopony was better at picking apart why she felt bad than she was.

Loud crunches echoed through the cave as she crushed loose gravel under her hooves. The surface of the water shimmered with light, and tiny ripples flowed through it as drops of water fell from stalactites high above.

There was a specific rock Pinkie usually sat on when she came here. It was huge, it jutted out over the water like a diving board, and its smooth surface made it just comfortable enough to sit on for long hours at a time. It was like it was made for her.

So, she dusted off her rock and made herself comfortable, then looked down over the edge at her reflection.

A bubbly pink pony stared back, a wide grin on her face and her mane in tangles.

Pinkie sighed as she watched the reflection warp under the tiny waves. “I don’t even know why I came here.”

“For me, silly.”

It was easy to imagine her reflection talking back to her, and the reflection was right. That was the only reason she ever went to her thinking spot. Usually her thoughts were too jumbled to sort out, but she could get them out in a conversation. She had Fluttershy, of course, but sometimes that wasn’t enough. Sometimes she needed to be both sides of the conversation, and at times like that she came here, to the mirror pool.

“What are you even going to do for me, though?”

The reflection shrugged. “I’unno.”

Pinkie huffed. “What a waste. You can’t prove she’s not gonna disappear.”

“Well, I can’t prove anypony will do anything,” the reflection replied. “That doesn’t mean Rarity’s gonna go live on the moon tomorrow.”

“But there’s no reason to believe that would happen!”

“Okay, well, Twilight could’ve gone to live in Canterlot for, like, years. You weren’t constantly afraid of that.”

“Yes I was!” Pinkie frowned. “I’m always afraid of that stuff.”

“Okay, well, what do you do to stay happy despite all that stuff?”

“I don’t know,” Pinkie grumbled. “I mean, maybe I didn’t. Maybe I’ve never been happy and it’s all just been an act.”

“Oh, that’s just silly.”

“Is it?” Pinkie stood up and messed her mane up until it was big and fluffy again. “See? I can just fake it.”

The reflection stifled a giggle. “C’mon, you know that’s not convincing at all.”

Pinkie’s mane fell back down around her shoulders. “Oh, what do you know?”

“Uh, everything you do? Duh.”

Pinkie scowled at her reflection. “Don’t make fun of me!”

“I wasn’t! I was making fun of m—Oh.” The reflection laughed. “Oopsie.”

Pinkie huffed and stomped her hoof. “Come on, that’s not—”

When she slammed her hoof down on the smooth, slippery stone, it slid straight off and sent Pinkie toppling over. She let out a yelp and scrambled to catch herself as she fell, but all she managed to do in her panic was push herself forwards just enough that, instead of falling onto the rock, she tipped straight over the edge and plummeted towards the water.

She made a huge splash that echoed through the cave for almost a minute as the water settled.

Then a pink hoof shot out and grabbed the shore, followed by another, and then a pink head and mane. As Pinkie pulled herself up out of the water, she shook her head vigorously, and once the water was out her mane poofed out into its normal, pillowy shape.

“Huh,” she said. “Guess I just needed a dip.”

With that, she hopped away and up the long ramp that led back to Everfree Forest.

She didn’t even notice when, back in the cave, another hoof came out of the pond and dragged its own pink pony from the depths. This Pinkie stood still, dripping water from her long, straight mane with a bleak frown etched so deeply into her face it seemed like it might never leave.