BRING OUT YOUR— you know the drill
Pinkie Pie Drives a Hearse
by Winston
“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!!!” Pinkie Pie’s voice belted out violently loud and grainy through a megaphone she held in front of her mouth.
Sitting in the open-air driver’s seat of a long black wagon, she kept ambling her vehicle down the road at a languorous pace. Most of its rear was made up of a long, boxy enclosure, with a large hatch at the back.
“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!!!” She turned her head slightly to blast the cry at the far side of the street, pelting the homes and shops there with the static-edged lo-fi sound of her crudely amplified voice.
One by one, windows flew up and doors cracked open in the early dawn light. Curious ponies poked their heads out to investigate the strange goings-on. Some of them seemed delighted to have some unexpected morning entertainment provided to them for free. Some just showed on their faces how deeply annoyed they were with the local pink idiot not even waiting until a civilized hour of the morning, when everypony had their coffee first, before causing another of her random public spectacles.
It was how a reporter just starting her day in the newspaper’s offices in one of the nearby buildings was pretty sure she was going to write the headline for this one: LOCAL PINK IDIOT CAUSES PUBLIC SPECTACLE. That would be an attention-getter in print, especially if they let her do it in all-caps like she was envisioning. But after a few seconds of consideration, she wasn’t sure she could get away with ‘idiot.’ She pondered ‘nuisance’ or ‘menace’ as alternatives, but those probably wouldn’t clear S&P either. Oh well, she’d have to workshop it around the office and see what would stick. Maybe if she was clever she could work in the phrase ‘Ruins Everything’ somehow. For now, she’d have to just watch the show, take notes, and grudgingly admit that there was a certain convenience in the news coming to her instead of her having to go to it.
The black thing Pinkie was driving hummed and thrummed and puffed out pulsing clouds of thin smoke from an engine embedded somewhere within it, and kept rolling down the street. Pinkie Pie didn’t seem to be doing much active steering, with her front hooves mostly occupied by the megaphone, but this also hardly seemed to matter; the wagon wasn’t moving any faster than a pony at a highly sedate walking pace.
And anyway, the street was mostly clear at this time of the morning. There wasn’t much danger of somepony getting run over. Probably.
Although, if they did, it would be an even better news story.
“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!!!”
“What are you on about this time, Pinkie?!” an irate voice yelled back in response from a yellow earth pony mare standing in her doorway, angrily shaking a hoof at Pinkie’s antics. “If this is some crazy prank or something to get everypony to go to a spooky party you’re throwing, somepony oughta set you straight! Nightmare Night isn’t for months!”
Pinkie paid no attention, not even giving the annoyed mare a look. Or at least, if she did, nopony could tell from behind the dark glasses Pinkie wore, or in the somber expression resolutely fixed on her face as she stared straight ahead.
She just subtly adjusted the black silk tophat she was wearing, shifted in her deep black tailcoat, and drove on a few more yards.
“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!!!” she belted again through the megaphone.
But nopony seemed inclined to do so just yet.
🦇 🦇 🦇
Mayor Mare stood at her window on an upper floor of the town hall and stared out at the scene unfolding on a Ponyville street below.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with me, does it?” she asked with concern. “Am I scheduled to be dead today?”
“Lemme see here.” Her secretary consulted a day planner. “No, but your afternoon is a bit light,” she said dryly. “I can try to work it in if you like.”
“…I’d prefer not,” the Mayor mumbled.
“Very good, ma’am.” Her secretary nodded. “I’m afraid you’re still probably going to have to do something about this situation, though.”
“Hmmmmmmm.” The Mayor narrowed her eyes, pondering the black-clad pink problem at hoof. “Y’know, this seems more like a ‘Twilight’ problem than a ‘me’ problem,” she decided. “Send a letter to that dragon of hers. Ask her if she can’t do the town a favor and convince her crazy friend to restrain herself.”
“Yes ma’am.” The secretary pulled a quill out an inkpot and started scribbling at her desk. “On it.”
“…Umm, but don’t use the word ‘crazy,’” Mayor Mare said. “Be… diplomatic.”
“Right, ma’am.” The secretary nodded. “No casting of aspersions on the crazy pony’s mental state. Gotcha.”
🕷️ 🕷️ 🕷️
“Pinkie Pie, it’s too early in the morning for this,” Twilight barked while she trotted alongside the big black wagon. “And you’re disturbing the peace. And the mayor’s complaining – she didn’t want to say it, but I’m pretty sure she thinks you’ve gone crazy or something. And not to swerve into Rarity’s lane or anything, but black is just not your color!”
“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!!!”
Twilight flattened her ears in pain from the sheer force of the megaphone’s sound. “Stop doing that!”
Pinkie just kept inching her wagon forward. “No can do, Twilight.”
“Why not?”
Somehow, Pinkie’s face got even more grim, and her voice gravelly. “Because there’s dead to bring out.”
“What are you talking about??” Twilight groaned in frustration. “You know I usually give you a lot of latitude for doing Pinkie Pie things, since you’re Pinkie Pie and all, but at some point—”
“Twilight, Twilight, Twilight.” Pinkie shook her head slowly. “Haven’t you learned to trust ol’ Pinkie by now?”
Twilight instinctively opened her mouth to argue, considered for a moment, and found she really didn’t have anything to counter with. “Okay, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt while you explain it to me,” she finally conceded. “But this better be good.”
Pinkie nodded slightly. “’Kay. See, it all started when…”
💀 💀 💀
“You’d better come see this.” The mayor’s secretary shook her head, staring out the window. “I think things just got worse.”
Mayor Mare rushed over to the window to see for herself, and her face fell. “Oh for crying out – now they’re both doing it?”
And indeed they were. Now not only was Pinkie Pie belting out her call to action, but Twilight was walking alongside the hearse-wagon, horn glowing with vivid shimmering purple as she called out in her own magically amplified voice.
“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!!!” the megaphone screamed.
“CHECK ON YOUR LOVED ONES, PLEASE, EVERYPONY!” Twilight’s voice was clearer (unicorn magic was much more refined and didn’t have clipping and distortion issues like those newfangled ‘electronics’ did), but no less loud. “AND BRING THEM OUT IF THEY’RE… UM, DECEASED.”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting that,” Mayor Mare said. “I thought she had her head screwed on straight.”
“Maybe she does,” her secretary suggested.
“What, so somehow it makes sense that Twilight Sparkle, of all ponies, is going around yelling about bringing out the dead or whatever?” Mayor Mare glared. “Not likely.”
“Whatever you say, ma’am,” her secretary agreed affably.
👻 👻 👻
“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash shouted, hovering above the strange duo with her hooves over her ears. “Why are you egging her on? It’s too early in the morning for this! I can hear the two of you from all the way up in my cloud house!”
“Good, then everypony should be getting the message,” Twilight said.
“What message?!” Rainbow asked incredulously.
“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!!!” Pinkie blasted again through the megaphone.
Rainbow clamped down harder on her suffering ears. “Yeah yeah, I got that part,” she groaned. “But, uhhh, I don’t see any dead ponies, do you?”
“Sorry, Rainbow. Pinkie Pie business,” Twilight said. “I have to trust her on this one.”
“More like monkey business.” Rainbow Dash scowled. “But if you say so. Just don’t be doing this all day, okay?”
“The sooner we find what we’re looking for, the sooner we’ll be done,” Twilight replied.
“Ugh. Fine!” Rainbow huffed. “I guess I’ll help, then, if it gets me back to sleeping in on my day off that much quicker. So, uh… what are we doing, exactly?”
⚰️ ⚰️ ⚰️
“Now the rainbow one’s with them,” Mayor Mare’s secretary noted.
“I’m almost starting to want to see where this goes,” the mayor said, transfixed at the window.
“Nowhere good, I’m sure,” the secretary said dourly. “I hear tell it involves a dead body. That could have been one of your constituents.”
“On the other hoof, it could have been one of my opponent’s constituents,” Mayor Mare countered more optimistically.
“Well, if you look at it that way.” Her secretary shrugged and kept watching the show.
🪦 🪦 🪦
“So you’re hunting for—”
“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!!!”
“—a dead body,” Inky Rose said. “Is that right?”
Twilight startled a little and turned to look. She hadn’t noticed the very gray pegasus in the black spiderweb-lace trimmed dress sneak over to join their little procession. She couldn’t say it didn’t seem fitting, though.
Twilight nodded in response.
“Cool,” Inky Rose said dispassionately. “So do you expect to really find a dead body?”
“Yes,” Twilight answered her. “Pinkie insists there’s one out here somewhere.”
“Interesting, but how could she possibly know that?” Inky Rose asked. She pondered her own question for a moment. “Unless she’s the one who arranged for somepony to become a dead body. I’m impressed. I didn’t think she had it in her.”
“Nope!” Pinkie said.
“Then how do you know?”
“I’unno.” Pinkie Pie shrugged her withers. “Just do. See, when I woke up this morning, as soon as I tried to hop out of bed, I tripped over my front right hoof. But I never miss sticking the landing when I jump out of bed, unless something tragic happened in Ponyville the night before. And then my tummy had the grumblies, which isn’t unusual, because breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but the weird thing was that I wasn’t even hungry. I knew right away that that wasn’t good. So I checked my face in the mirror before I brushed my mane, and it was just as I feared: my left eyelid was twitchy! When I saw that…” she finished in a dark voice, “I knew.”
“And you just believe her?” Inky Rose turned to Twilight.
“Pinkie sense,” Twilight said matter-of-factly. “What can you do? She’s never wrong about these things.”
Inky Rose looked back and forth at the motley crew of Pinkie in the hearse, Twilight marching alongside, and Rainbow flapping along overhead, all of whom were evidently doing this in dead earnest without a trace of irony.
“Eh, good enough,” she decided.
Inky Rose took a deep breath and threw her head back, twin braids of dark mane bouncing as she reared up and filled her chest. “BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!!” she hollered in a voice surprisingly loud for her diminutive frame.
🖤 🖤 🖤
Mayor Mare face-hoofed. “Now they’ve got the town goth started.”
“Also the yellow one,” her secretary noted. “Whatsershy or something.”
“Hmmmf. At least that one’s quiet,” Mayor Mare retorted.
“BRING OUT ANY DEAD YOU HAVE… UM, PLEASE.” Fluttershy’s voice drifted through the window. It was a bit on the quiet side, but only in the relative sense that she hadn’t turned her megaphone up quite as loud as Pinkie Pie.
But Mayor Mare decided to take the win anyway. She needed something to feel good about on a day like today, and ‘technically correct’ was, after all, the best kind of correct.
🪱 🪱 🪱
“Now what in the hay are ya’ll doin’ carryin’ on like this?” Applejack asked, looking somewhere between irate and baffled while she stood in the street before the small procession.
“Exactly what it says on the tin, Applejack,” Twilight responded. “Bringing out the dead. Somepony died in the night. We gotta find ‘em.”
Applejack raised an eyebrow, in the way she often did in the face of these kinds of shenanigans. “And how do you know that?”
“Duh! Pinkie sense!” Rainbow stared impatiently down at Applejack from a hover.
Applejack looked at Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie nodded slowly, expressionless behind her dark glasses.
“Oh. Yeah, okay, I guess that tracks.” Applejack rubbed her chin and nodded in thought. “But, uh, still… why are you the ones to go lookin’?”
Everypony was suddenly quiet, glancing back and forth at each other (except Pinkie, who just kept staring soberly ahead from the driver’s seat), as if questioning the course of action hadn’t ever really occurred to them.
This dragged on for several long seconds.
“I just wanted to see a dead body,” Inky Rose finally spoke up.
Everypony stared at her.
“What?” She stared back at the rest of them. “Tell me you didn’t.”
Nopony answered, and in the awkwardly silent aftermath, everypony broke eye contact with everypony else and shifted to looking uncomfortably at the ground or off into the distance at nothing in particular.
Mercifully, the silence didn’t last long.
“BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!!!”
🕸️ 🕸️ 🕸️
“Oh, good, Applejack’s taking care of business,” Mayor Mare said with relief. “If anypony’s got some horse sense around here, it’s her.”
“You sure about that?” her secretary asked. “Because it looks like she’s about to be a very silly pony.”
Mayor Mare watched in disbelief as Applejack, normally the most dependable of ponies, not only didn’t put an end to this bizarre horseplay, but actively joined in, taking her place and trotting with the growing procession.
“Alright, enough is enough,” Mayor Mare declared. She straightened her glasses and steeled herself with determination. “This is officially out of control. I’m going to have to take matters into my own hooves.”
☾ ☾ ☾
“I’d never normally have a part in something so uncouth, you know,” Rarity chatted to Inky Rose. “But under the circumstances, I can’t fault Pinkie for doing what must be done. And I admit, morbid as it is, I can’t help… well. I just have to know, you know?”
“Why, Miss Rarity.” Inky smiled faintly. “It seems there’s a dark gothy streak somewhere deep down inside you after all.”
“Ah– W– Th… Pssh.” Rarity made some frazzled noises and waved off the comment with one forehoof. She took a second to compose herself. “…Well. I do love a good eyeliner, I suppose.”
The two of them giggled to each other.
𖤐 𖤐 𖤐
Mayor Mare marched toward the constellation of ponies that Pinkie Pie’s antics had inexplicably drawn into a cluster around her. She fumed. Pinkie being Pinkie by herself was bad enough, but making her nonsense contagious? Downright dangerous! And did she even have a license for that… that… whatever that self-propelled contraption of a hearse-wagon was?
She was, after thinking about it, pretty sure it didn’t actually need a license, because the situation of how to regulate such a thing had never really come up as an issue before. But that was beside the point, and pushing a quick ordinance through could fix that minor detail easily enough.
No, this was about something bigger and more important: restoring order, darn it! She frowned and stomped along at a quick pace, quickly closing distance. And oh boy, when she reached them, was she going to give them a piece of her mind on the subject of keeping good order in town, and—
☠︎︎ ☠︎︎ ☠︎︎
Pinkie Pie slammed to a stop, more sharply and suddenly than any of the other ponies around her would have thought was possible from such a low speed.
They all stopped with her. All the side conversations that had been carrying on among them in the growing party atmosphere died in an instant.
Ahead of them, alone, in the middle of the road, a pony approached, silhouetted by the rising sun behind her. She was an older mare. Her head was hung in sorrow.
A limp form was slung across her back.
She walked to the hearse and stared at Pinkie Pie.
“I guess this is who you’re looking for,” she finally said.
Applejack took off her hat, held it against her chest, and closed her eyes.
Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash descended from the skies and landed. They slowly walked toward her, until one of them was standing on either side of the mare.
“May we?” Fluttershy asked softly, gently.
The mare nodded with tears in her eyes.
Working together, the two pegasi gently lifted the body from the mare’s back and carried it reverently to the rear of the hearse. Twilight opened the doors with her magic, and they set it inside.
“Who was she, dear?” Rarity asked.
“My wife,” the mare answered her in an unsteady voice threatening tears. “She’d been sick for a long time. We knew… we knew it was coming, just not when. She wanted to be at home, when it happened. So that’s where it happened, a few hours ago, in the night. I’m sorry, I know you’re supposed to call in and everything as soon as somepony passes… you know, start the whole process, but I just…”
She wobbled on her hooves, and sat down as she collapsed into sobs. “I just wasn’t ready to let her go. And I’m still not. I don’t know I ever can be.”
“Nopony ever is, I think.” Rarity and Inky Rose wrapped the old mare in a warm hug, followed one by one by the rest of the ponies Pinkie’s procession had picked up.
Mayor Mare watched from a distance, her irate march stopped and the anger on her face softened into something more like sorrow infused with contemplative empathy.
Maybe… maybe order could wait.
🕷 🕷 🕷
The hearse and its procession circled Ponyville, announcing the passing of Silver Pin, renowned jeweler, survived by her beloved wife Moonstone Mist, her daughter Silver Chalice, and granddaughter Silver Spoon. They meandered through the streets for an hour, with a growing crowd of ponies following the whole time. Some ponies were silent in respect, and some, with equal respect, told stories about their memories of Silver Pin in life.
Moonstone Mist sat in the passenger’s seat in the front, one by one receiving the comfort and condolences of what seemed like everypony in town.
At the end, when Pinkie finally pulled the hearse up to the Ponyville Mortuary, the dispersing ponies all agreed that she’d done the right thing, however little they understood at first. It was the Pinkie Sense. She was never wrong about these things. And if she hadn’t been around, what would have become of poor Moonstone Mist? How much harder would it have been, without somepony to bring them all together and support her in her time of need? They all shuddered to think.
And Mayor Mare, order and keeping the town quiet be darned, joined them in readily acknowledging that she really could not disagree.
❦ ❦ ❦
“So it was Silver Pin, huh?” The Mayor’s secretary asked, after she’d returned to the office and collapsed into her chair to think for a bit.
“Yes.” Mayor Mare nodded. “What a sad day. She was such a nice mare, and a great talent in her craft. Made all my favorite collar pins. Ponyville’s really lost something without her.”
“Sure has,” the secretary agreed. “So what do you want to do about Pinkie Pie?”
“Not a thing.” Mayor Mare shook her head. “Not a darn thing. The hearse comes for us all someday, you know. When it’s my day… frankly, I hope she’s driving it, megaphone and all. And if that annoys a few ponies? Well…” She grinned. “I won’t be around to have to deal with the noise complaints, will I?”
“Quite right, ma’am.” Her secretary nodded. “Quite right. So, about your schedule for this afternoon…”
Author's Note
...Sorry.
