Dreamwalker's Tale: An Anthology

The moment I reached consciousness was the very moment I wished I had not done so. These valuable first seconds were filled with a sensory overload the likes of which I assumed I had never experienced before. Worse still, everything blended together and mixed in ways it was not supposed to.

I could hear a bird chirping somewhere in the distance. Or maybe it was a lot closer than I thought, because I could not tell an inch apart from a mile right now. All I knew was that I felt an intense, burning hatred for that bird. Not birds in general, no, this one, this specific one. Its ‘song’ drilled into my head and it just would not shut up. It did not stop, it did not waver, it just chirped and chirped and I could feel its song bore into my brain.

When I tried to open my eyes, I found them oddly resistant to the idea. They were caked over, a crust of I-don’t-want-to-know. I pushed through the resistance and immediately regretted my life choices. Again, I could feel the light. Because it flooded into my eyes like boiling water, it hurt my mind in a way I had not deemed possible.

I quickly pressed them shut again while I slowly regained a sense of my own body. A long spine. Four legs. Hooves. I ignored the spasms as best as I could.

I lay on the floor. The ground, rather. On dirt. I could feel individual crumbs of dirt, clay or stones pressing into my coat, sticking to it in an uncomfortable way. Meanwhile my coat was getting a nice glaze. Cooked in my own sweat, it felt like, with the sun bearing down on me relentlessly.

There was a puddle of… questionable origin nearby. The acrid smell told me a story of an empty stomach that was only capable of relieving itself of acid.

Not everything was awful though.

I could smell grass nearby. Dirt. The faint remnants of rain, probably from yesterday. And for as prickly as the soil beneath me initially felt, the soft dirt was not all that bad once I got a little bit more used to it.

I tried to stand up. It seemed obvious and natural, but the moment I attempted to gain control over my legs, these twitching, trembling appendages made perfectly clear that they were under no obligation to obey. “Crap,” I croaked and was almost shocked to hear my own voice. It sounded rough, hoarse. Less of a mystery once I remembered the puddle. I could still taste the acid on my tongue, it was mildly disgusting.

With little other choice, I attempted to open my eyes again. Slowly. Just a tiny crack, because I already knew what I had to expect. It helped as the light flooded in once more. Bright daylight. A sunny day no less, hence the perceived oven heat. Though on second impression, it was not as hot as I initially thought. Still uncomfortable, but not ‘Oh sweet Celestia, I am going to burn’-hot.

Celestia.

I blinked in surprise. Well, that was an interesting name. And it gave my mind something to cling to. Something to mull over. I knew that name. I even vaguely remembered a face? Maybe? She was a pony, right?

But what about my own name?

Easy. Dreamwalker. Done.

Good. What about others? Because I could not shake the feeling that something was missing. A lot, actually. So I rummaged around in my own head, searching for something I had forgotten. Like walking down endless rows in a warehouse, checking the inventory for blank spots. And they somehow became more obvious when I focused on what I actually knew.

I could name things. Soil, dirt, grass, those were easy. Bird. Song. Forest. A collection of trees. Evergreen Forest. A particularly nasty piece of work. And exactly the forest I lay before. Well, still a couple dozen feet away from its edge, but close enough to stare at its twisted and gnarled trees. And that gosh-darn bird was somewhere in there.

Sky. Cloud. Hooves. Horn.

Oooh! A horn. Unicorn. Yes. I immediately focused on it as best as I could. I closed my eyes again and tried to feel out that protrusion on my forehead. The result was a little underwhelming. Since it was not a jointed appendage I could move at will, it did not do anything by itself. But I remembered telekinesis. An easy spell. Everypony could do that, right? Well, every unicorn.

I tried to grab a nearby stick on the ground. No idea what I wanted to do with it, but I tried to grab it and pull it closer. I saw a faint, light brown-yellowish aura encase the wood. It wobbled. Then it wobbled more violently and… broke.

Yikes. Not gonna try that on anything important.

The distraction had helped. Not just with getting my bearings, but also with bridging the gap until the constant twitching in my legs slowed down. I still felt like crap. Weak. Unfocused. Tired. Mostly weak. But I told myself that it was important to get up. Without actually knowing why.

My first attempt to stand up — not counting the hilariously embarrassing display earlier — was an utter failure again. I managed to roll onto my belly, who protested with a violent and noisy gurgle, and then I overshot my target and flopped onto my other side.

Great. Good progress. Ten out of ten, would roll over like a good puppy again. I grimaced. Which by itself felt strangely natural. How odd.

It was difficult to tell the passing of time. At some point the sun would set, sure. But there were a lot of hours between sunrise and sunset. I had no idea at which point I came to my senses, and how much time had passed between that and now. Felt like an hour, maybe two. Could be two minutes just as well.

Before a third-first attempt of standing up, I gave myself a break. I tried to focus on my mental state again. Tried to name things again. The Everfree Forest was not just any old forest, it was a landmark. Meaning there was a land. Equestria. Yes, that one. Thanks. Even with closed eyes, I still rolled them in mild annoyance with myself.

The Everfree Forest in Equestria. And as I tried my best to find a connection to something else there, a sudden... thing popped up in my mind. Less of a thought, not really an idea. More like a feeling.

Home.

I had no mental image of it. No understanding of size, location, distance, anything. But I knew for a fact that there was a village nearby. A town, maybe. At the edge of the Everfree Forest. And it was home. And that, somehow, finally clued me in to the most important part, to the gaping hole in my head:

I had no idea how I got here.

And despite knowing my name, I knew almost nothing else about myself.

Faced with this sudden revelation, I naturally started to panic. Who was I? Where did I come from? Why was I here? Had I been attacked? Hit over the head with a brick? Was I an amnesiac? Maybe a lunatic fled from a hospital? Was I dangerous to others? Did I have family? Friends? Wives? Foals? A bird with white-tipped feathers?

I blinked. That was oddly specific. But the sudden intrusion helped to keep my panic in check, so I tried to follow that line of thought. Ponies, I was pretty sure, did not just pop into existence. I had to come from somewhere, meaning there was somepony out there who knew me, probably searched for me, and hopefully cared about me. Somepony who could clue me in as to what happened.

It was just a matter of finding them. Can’t be that hard, right? I rolled my eyes again.

I wanted to go home. There was a deep, unfathomably deep longing to just… go home. Maybe that was the reason I was out here in the first place? Maybe I really was an escaped psych-ward patient. Whatever the case may be, I remembered that village-town-city-thingy. Ponyville. It was home. I needed to go there. With legs. Working, cooperating legs. Come on, guys. You want to walk, I know it! So I tried again.

And something about that just… clicked. I tried. I tried a lot. I failed a lot, too. But I tried and tried again and again. It was my schtick, maybe? Or at least something I used to tell myself a lot.

I rolled onto my belly again and did not overshoot it this time. Neat. Then I cautiously pressed my hooves onto the ground. They tingled for a few seconds, as if unfamiliar with the prospect of actually carrying weight. But once that settled down, I pushed. I pushed myself up, off the ground. It felt like a herculean task. Like Atlas moving the world.

Who the heck is Atlas?, I briefly wondered. Probably an earth pony.

And I wanted to scream in triumph when my legs snapped into place and they suddenly felt less weak and useless, less like wobbly noodles stuck to a balloon.

I. Stood.

I sighed in relief instead. My voice, my throat, they were grateful for my self-restraint. The vertigo was awful, but that was something a quadruped was particularly well-equipped to deal with. I braced myself, with my hooves spaced further apart. It looked silly, I assumed. But it kept me stable and upright.

I stood and I had therefore conquered my first major hurdle. Neat.

… now what?

I looked at the forest nearby and felt an ominous fear creep up my spine, raising all hair on my coat in the process. This forest was dark. Deep. Dangerous. Full of monsters and chaotic magic. One could not even trust the flowers.

I turned around. With tremendous effort, only ever raising one hoof at a time. I could spot Ponyville in the distance. A collection of small houses with strangely familiar shapes. My legs started to jitter again as a splitting headache suddenly washed over me. My knees threatened to buckle, but I kept myself up, albeit barely.

I saw them. Faces. Names. Colors. Cutie marks. Rainbow Dash. Berrytwist? Derpy. Fluttershy. Minuette. Applejack. Roseluck. It did not stop. It picked up speed instead, one after another, quicker and quicker they flew past my mental eye. A flood of information surged into my brain. It felt like needles were slowly twisted into it. And I could do nothing. Nothing to help, nothing to stop it, nothing but brace myself and stand there and endure these flashbacks or whatever they were.

Once that was over, I heaved several deep breaths. I trembled. My entire body did. This… this flood, it took a lot out of me. A lot of energy, from what little I even had. But I remembered now. I remembered so much more than I had before. I remembered hobbies I shared with friends. And those were my friends. I loved playing horseshoes with Applejack. Even though she always won. She was a good sport about it. Unlike Rainbow, who rarely passed up an opportunity to gloat. But at the end of the day, Rainbow tried to inspire others, she wanted them to be their best selves, she wanted them to push themselves to greater heights.

I remembered endless strolls through wide fields and rolling hills, accompanied by Derpy and her daughter. Who had a face in my memory, but lacked a name. My shoulders sagged, accompanied by a sigh. So it was not a perfect recollection. There were still parts missing.

At least seeing my very colorful friends helped me realize that there were important things about a pony's body. And for the first time, I actually cared to look at myself. The feeling of alienation was almost entirely gone, this body was mine and mine alone, but I still felt slightly… off.

And looking at myself did not exactly impress me. My coat was brown. Not mouthwatering-rich-chocolate-brown. Not fertile-soil-brown. It was the kind of plain brown one would find when buying a starter set of crayons or pencils. A nondescript brown-brown. At least the rather bland color explained why I had struggled so much — and still did, to a certain extent — with the direct sunlight. While not dark gray or black, it was a darker color.

My mane and tail were the same shade of brown, just darker. When I compared my appearance to my friends, when I tried to imagine myself standing next to the well-toned, orange-coated, adorable southern accent-slinging Applejack with her cute red ribbon and her stylish hat? Or next to Rainbow, with her prismatic mane and room-filling ego? Even I would not look at myself twice. Maybe I would not even take notice of my presence at first glance to begin with. And yet somehow, that thought did not really irk me as much as I had expected it would.

So blending into the background was something I preferred, it seemed. Giving the spotlight to those who could handle it. Or in Rainbow's case, who craved it. I chuckled as I saw her cocky grin before my mind's eye. I could not wait to see her again. Would she be happy to see me again? Did she miss me? Had I even been lost?

Cutie marks were important as well, of course. It was the deepest, most important, most honest expression of the self. A representation of inherent magic and talent. Of purpose. And mine was a wibbly-wobbly line of blueish something with what appeared to be… stars?... in it. Maybe. It was hard to tell. A mirror would serve me well, but I lacked one. And my neck protested any attempts to stare at my own flank for any longer.

Well, why wait? I had a town with a name, connected to the feeling of home, and a couple of friends waiting there. Sure, every step was slow as heck, but I would get there eventually.

“Easy does it,” I mimicked something Applejack had told me again and again. I could not recall the context, but her voice was present in a lot of my rather vague and disjointed memories. And she sounded like a teacher to me. Or at least somepony whose advice I held in high regard.

I had managed a whole lot of… twelve steps or so, when I suddenly heard something new.

Singing.

At first I thought it came from that strange, half-buried cottage over yonder. But my ears swiveled around until they managed to free themselves of my continued disorientation. I had no idea why I even associated that cottage with song.

But the singing was… beautiful. It tickled my brain. And I spotted the onset early enough this time to fully brace myself. The flood was not that huge this time. Either because I managed to prepare myself, or some other condition kept it brief. But I felt like I had been here before. I had been through this entire charade before. The twisting limbs, the vomiting, the light-is-needles-thing. And I had heard her sing before.

“Twilight?” I asked. My heart beat faster. I felt like it wanted to crawl out of my mouth and drop into my knees at the same time. I got sweaty, hot and cold and jittery, elated and nervous. Twilight, I thought. It really was all I thought. On repeat. I quickly turned around, I tried to anyway. With a little bit too much enthusiasm. As I immediately collapsed to the ground again. And it really felt like I had been hit over the head once more. My head swam in pain and chaos, everything became blurry and unfocused again and the name I had such a solid grasp on just seconds ago slipped through my hooves.

“No! No no no no no, don’t go away,” I weakly pleaded, but it was too late. Whatever piece of my life I had remembered, it was gone again. Sunken down into the abyss where the rest of my memories hopefully waited until I figured out how to retrieve them.

I sighed. And I wanted to give up. I really did. But there was singing, and it got louder, and I could finally make out words.

“Come on everypony, smile, smile, smile, Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine!”

My throat grew tight and I inevitably smiled. “All I really need’s a smile, smile, smile, from these happy friends of mine,” I continued alongside the quirky voice.

She stopped. Why did she stop?

I only briefly wondered, right before a shadow fell upon me. “Hi there!”

I cautiously blinked and looked up. Cerulean. Baby-blue eyes. A bouncy, poofy mane. An everlasting smile, albeit currently upside-down. I could not help but chuckle. “Hi there yourself.”

“Do you need help?” she asked. As she did, she looked me over and I felt strangely… naked. Then she looked back over her shoulder, in the direction where I had come from, and she probably stared right at the puddle, and maybe the spots of flattened grass where I had rolled around in futile attempts to get up.

It was embarrassing. Or rather, it should have been. But somehow, with her, it did not feel like it. I could already tell that I was the kind of pony that would always try. Try a lot, fail a lot, try again. But try alone. Because I did not want to bother others. I did not wish to impose upon them. I did not wish to drag them into my issues. I was not a team player. I was not hyperactive. I was calm. And quiet. And reserved. And she, she was loud and colorful and in-your-face and excitable.

Several minor revelations about her and myself later, I found that I had no issue accepting her help. So I nodded. “I, ehrm, yes. I could use some help.”

She offered me a hoof. I had no idea why I expected her to just grab me in her telekinesis, lift me up, turn me over and put me down again. She was an earth pony. She did not have active spellcasting like that. I accepted her hoof and was surprised and at the same time not surprised at all by the sheer strength I could feel beneath that careful layer of mindfulness.

And right when I thought I had things figured out, the vertigo came back with a vengeance. Before I could utter a single syllable, I stumbled. She grabbed me and instead of letting me fall onto my rump, she pulled me towards herself, so I tumbled against her. And stayed upright, in a tight hug.

My knees almost gave out. My head got used to the sensation of splitting headaches, somehow, as the third flood washed over my mind. Her embrace was familiar. In this and many different ways. A friend's hug. A lover's embrace. Not just coincidence. I felt the warmth of her body and it was so much more welcoming than the sun's heat bearing down on us. I felt her coat brush on mine. I sunk into her, relaxed. My nostrils flared as I picked up her scent. Oven heat. Sugary delights. Strawberries. Cherries? Cinnamon?

With my mind still in a haze, I mumbled: “Mmmm… I love cinnamon…” And I licked her. As if she was a gosh-darn Hearth's Warming Eve candy cane. I had no idea what I expected. Or why I did it. But the faint taste of strawberry shampoo brought me back to my senses. Because that stuff was not meant to be eaten.

“I-I’m so sorry!” I sputtered and tried to recoil.

The latter was surprisingly hard to do. She merely giggled due to the sensation, and giggled again as I tried to apologize and retreat. She hugged me, and she did not let go. She did not even let me flee an inch. “It’s fine! I want to lick stuff because it smells good all the time!”

I could not help myself. It was just… such an odd thing to say. Such an utterly weird explanation. I chuckled, but it quickly grew into a quiet laugh, and finally into louder guffaws. And she laughed right alongside me. It was a nice sound. Earnest and genuine. The word ‘pure’ came to mind. But at the same time, my mind drew a clear line, a distinction that ‘pure’ was not equal to ‘innocent’, even though her eyes seemed innocent.

Once I calmed down, I tried to retreat again and this time, she let me. “I’m still sorry though. As far as I can remember, you’re not supposed to go around licking ponies.”

She giggled. “That would be a fun world!”

I was not entirely convinced of her estimation, but neither did I see any reason to argue. “And how many ponies have you licked ‘because they smelled good’?” I asked in jest.

The transformation was astonishing. Within mere fractions of seconds, her expression morphed from superficially innocent joy to smoldering, sultry bedroom eyes, adorned by a smile that could only be understood as delighted anticipation. And this was not the kind of well-practiced sultry gaze Rarity could conjure up. This was raw, unbridled passion. “Wouldn’t you like to know…” she answered.

I was speechless. And quite frankly, intimidated. And turned on. Somehow all of that, at the same time. And just as quickly as this change had occurred did it vanish. She stared at me for a moment, as if to gauge something, and then giggled with a snort mixed in. “You should have seen the look on your face!”

I gulped and chuckled uneasily. “Heh, yeah, I can imagine.” I could not. “S-So, uhm…” I looked her up and down. Her mane and tail were of a darker shade of the same raspberry color as her coat. I failed to recollect why I associated that with magic. What I noticed as well however, was her voluptuous body shape. I did not intend to stare. And maybe I managed not to. But what good did that if my face flushed like a tomato anyway.

And yet, again, she merely giggled and just ignored my many, many missteps. “I’m Pinkie!” she instead offered her name and a hoof.

I bonked my hoof against hers and snickered. “I’m Dreamwalker. Nice to meet you.” It just slipped out. ‘Nice to meet you’, it was such a formulaic response, so deeply ingrained in my brain. But I knew her already. I had failed to remember her name up until now, sure, but I knew that mare. I knew her desire for copious amounts of sugar. I knew that she was a lot of fun to be around. I knew of her rampant insecurities and imposter syndrome silently gnawing away at her. I knew of that bakery she worked and lived in. I knew of the very, very pink interior design of her bedroom. I knew that in the eternal war between coffee and tea, she was the leader of the impartial hot cocoa-fraction. I knew of her sisters, her parents, her love for ear scratches if done right, I knew of—

Wait.

“Uhm, Pinkie, d-do you mind if I just… test something out?” I asked. She shrugged and nodded and smiled. Innocently. No. Purely. There was a difference. But with her permission given and not a single question asked as to what I wanted to try, I stepped closer to her again and lifted a hoof. Because I remembered that twig and she was certainly important to me. I moved slowly, to give her ample opportunity to back away at any point. But she did not. And I scratched her ear. With the edge of my hoof, right at the base.

Her eyes fluttered shut. “O-Ooohhh, that’s goooood…!” she murmured.

So if that piece of easily verifiable information worked out, then maybe it was safe to assume they all did. But how would that work? How could I know her without knowing her? She clearly did not know me. This was an introduction scene. A first encounter. Exchange of names and all that. How did I know that her sister Maud currently worked on her rocktorate? Or that limestone had massive anger management issues? Or how all the Pies were fiercely protective towards Marble, and I fully understood why? How could I know her favorite dish, flower, color, song, when I met her for the first time?

Worse still: What about the others? What about Applejack? Rainbow? Derpy? Rarity?

What about home?

My hoof trailed off and slowly lowered itself down as I battled a sinking feeling in my stomach. She picked up on the mood change immediately. “Don’t worry. I have cherry-cinnamon-rolls at home. A fresh batch, baked them this morning!”

It clearly was an invitation. More importantly, it was my favorite. I only remembered now, even without any flood. But I loved cherries. And cinnamon. “How? How did you know?” I asked her.

Pinkie giggled again and shrugged. “I woke up and my right eye twitched. Then my legs got all itchy and my tail wobbled.”

Ah yes, the infamous Pinkie sense. I shot her a lopsided smile. “And what did that tell you?”

“Well there were several other signs before I got out of bed,” she mused in thought, “but it basically told me to get something with cherries and cinnamon ready and to head out to the forest road later in the morning.”

It was a relief and a bummer at the same time. So she did not know me at all. She just followed instructions from a barely understood phenomenon. Somepony should study that at some point.

Twi…

I blinked. For a fraction of a second, I felt like there was something. Just out of reach. Some… understanding. Something important. But as soon as I focused on it, it was gone again. Frustrating.

“I’m a little wobbly on my legs,” I told Pinkie. “Would it be too much to ask if I could accompany you to Ponyville?”

She snorted again and shook her head. “Nopers! It would be silly not to ask, silly. I prepared your breakfast after all. And your room.”

“M-My room?” I sputtered.

“Yeppers! Already asked Mister and Misses Cake and they were fine with it as long as-… well, that’s details, for later.” She winked at me.

It brought up a good point. Ponyville felt like home. But did I actually have a home? Like, an actual building? An address? A room with a bed? And here my memory failed me again. So her offer was currently the best I had. “Thank you.”

I tried to think about Mister and Misses Cake. I had faces. Names. But little else. And the harder I tried to pry into that locked box of memories, the stranger things got. My mind was diverted elsewhere and through mysterious channels I did not comprehend, I landed back with Pinkie. With a memory of us… cuddling? A tight embrace on her way-too-small bed. With the sensation of stickiness in certain regions.

The implications made me blush again and I decided to better get going before I somehow made things worse.

“You’re doing that a lot,” she commented as we walked towards town.

“What?”

She grinned knowingly. “You look at me and then you get red. Well, not red really, more like maroon…?”

I quickly shook my head. “Yeah, sorry about that. I’m just… I think I hit my head pretty badly and my mind’s a jumbled mess. I remember all kinds of things and I’m not sure if half of them ever happened or hold true.”

“The scratchies were nice,” she noted.

I blinked and slowed down. “I’m… glad to hear that? I mean… I don’t see the connection?”

“There’s things you can’t understand,” she elaborated. I nodded to signify my understanding so far. “These things may be part of you. So you should trust yourself. Or they are not part of you, but come from someplace else. If so, do they feel all eeevil? If not, maybe it’s someone else trying to guide and help you. So you should probably trust them. And if it leads you to bad places, then you know. And you can probably still change your mind.”

The world was an unfathomably complex network, comprised of thousands of lesser, but not less complex systems and mechanics. Pinkie made it seem easy. She broke it down into base components. Good. Bad. Fun. Not fun. It was baffling how in tune with herself she was. It was one thing to trust one's own gut feeling. But she did not just trust it. What she did went way beyond trust.

It was admirable, I decided. And there really was a lot to admire about her.

And I was staring again. I only noticed when I heard her giggle. “S-Sorry.”

“You apologize a lot,” she wondered. “Is that fun?”

“Well, no, not particularly,” I answered.

“Then why do it?” she shot straight back.

“I…” … was at a loss for words. Again. “Some things can’t be fun, but are still necessary.”

She mulled that over and shrugged. “Maybe. But you can make apologizing fun, I bet.”

I laughed again. It felt strangely freeing to do that in her presence. And I did notice out of the corner of my eye how her eyes lit up when I laughed. Her way of dealing with life was just so unique and… quirky. “I’m sure you can make anything fun!” I replied with gusto.

“You’re damn right I can!” she proudly announced and wiggled her eyebrows.

It was silly. She was silly. And I loved it. We both shared another laugh. I had almost forgotten about anything else. I had certainly spent less attention towards our surroundings. As such, I was surprised when a timid pale-golden pegasus with a pink mane walked up to us. From the direction of that overgrown cottage no less. I should have seen her coming, quite literally, for a while already.

“Oh, hey Fluttershy!” I greeted her with excitement. Only after the words had slipped out did I realize that I had not been able to combine that appearance with that name before. But it somehow clicked now. And worse still, she immediately demonstrated why I should be more careful with the usage of these tidbits of information I got from my faulty memories.

“O-Oh, uhm, h-hello? Do I know you? Did we meet already?” And before I could even hope to get a word in, I saw panic rising in her eyes. “Oh no! Did we meet and I forgot about it? I can’t seem to remember your name! Or your face. Or… anything about you.” She got quieter and quieter with every sentence, until I could barely make out a word she said. And she retreated behind her flowing, curtain-like mane.

Her reaction made me fly into a panic of my own as I mentally scrambled to find a way to salvage my first meeting with somepony who I considered a dear and beloved friend. Luckily, Pinkie came to my rescue. Even though I did not understand why. “I told him about you,” she lied. “He’s new to town and my Pinkie sense told me to go greet him, because he gets lost easily and he was almost walking into the forest. And on our way back I told him aaaaall about Ponyville and my fun friends!”

Pinkie's overly excited explanation did seem to calm Fluttershy down. Everything made sense now. She sighed in relief, a proper introduction followed, then a brief and superficial conversation, and shortly after Fluttershy told us that she was on her way to Zecora and wished us goodbye.

Whoever Zecora was.

We both watched Fluttershy walk away. And there it was again. That prickly sensation that I was missing pieces. She was a pegasus. Why did she not fly away? But that was a question best left for another day. Maybe I could ask Pinkie later on. For now, I merely turned to her. “Thank you,” I offered.

Pinkie meanwhile dropped the over-excited mask back down to a more moderate level of genuine happiness, a more sustainable level. “You didn’t answer,” she noted.

“Answer what?” I replied in confusion.

“I said you were new to town and Fluttershy asked if you were going to stay. You didn’t answer that.”

She was right. It took me a moment to recap the brief conversation in my mind, but she was right. The conversation had developed in a different direction and the question just got lost in the mix. But it was obvious now that Pinkie cared about the answer. At least it was an easy answer to give. “Ponyville is my home. I… I have a lot of questions that need answers sooner or later, but I know that much. Ponyville is my home, and you are my friend.”

She seemed relieved. A vigorous nod made her wobbly mane bounce up and down, which in turn made her giggle. And with a new spring in her step, she skipped a couple of them ahead. “That’s great! We’re gonna have so much fun! Although I gotta say, that is not how you look at friends!” She merrily giggled, snorted and laughed as she bounced away, wiggling her hip in the process.

I grimaced. I tried not to stare. And grimaced some more because I did it anyway. Such a tease. But it was all in good fun, was it not? All in good fun.

As I picked up the pace and followed her to my new home, I briefly glanced back over my shoulder. Down the path we had come. Towards the edge of the Everfree Forest. If I concentrated hard enough, I felt like I could still hear it. A faint whistling. It was probably just an echo of my memories. But when I thought about it, I felt this deep hole in my heart. Something was missing.

I sighed. I had too many mysteries to deal with. “Baby steps,” I told myself and turned around again. And I fixed my gaze on a shapely pink rump. With a competitive grin plastered on my face, I sped up and ran after her, chasing her down through the streets of Ponyville. Literally chasing her tail.

That would be an interesting first introduction to most of my past and future friends…