Mirror: Book I - Mind

The last of the cardboard boxes levitated their way through the open door and into the castle’s kitchen space, stacked across the walls and shelves in neat, organized intervals, per her Highness’ unshakable habits. Meanwhile, the earth mare whom was overseeing the whole operation opened one container after the other and drew forth various sets of dishes and silverware, placing them across the shelves. She paused to glance at her work and turned back to address the Alicorn.

“I must thank you once again for your hospitality, your Highness.” The earth pony bowed. “I don’t think my sister’s kitchen could’ve taken as big of a baking operation as we had planned.”

“Not a problem, Mrs. Cake.” Twilight acknowledging, resting a box between them. “You and your family are welcome to stay at the castle too, if you’d like?”

“You’ve already done plenty for us, I’d hate to mooch off of you anymore than I have to.” She went to unfurl the flaps of the box before her, reaching inside to find a fluffy mass of pink, cotton fur stuffed inside. The baker paused, wondering why a collection of dishes would look or even feel like this, only for her to remember that kitchenware wasn’t supposed to have big, beady eyes looking back at her.

“Erm…did we happen to check off a one miss ‘Pinkie Pie’ on the list, your Highness?” Mrs. Cake asked warily.

Twilight gave the mare a confused yet cautious stare, levitating her clipboard over her face as her eyes scanned down the line of items to check off. At the bottom of the paper read the name “Pinkie Pie” scribbled in pink crayon, accompanied by a smiley face and sunflowers. The Alicorn had to put some effort into suppressing a sigh and a roll of her eyes, the clump of cotton and fluff pooling out of the box soon after as the scent of bubblegum invaded the room.

“Talk about poor delivery.” The bubbly mare chortled to herself. “Hiya, Twilight. Hiya, Mrs. Cake. Fancy meeting you two here.” She focused on the baker. “Say, are you using this box right now?”

“No, it would appear that you are, dear.” Mrs. Cake replied.

“Does that mean I can borrow it?” Pinkie looked on with anticipation.

“I’d hate to think what might happen if you didn’t.”

“Great! Thanks a bunch, Mrs. Cake. See ya’ later, Twilight.” The pink pony brought her hooves over her head and shrunk back down into the box, the flaps following and swinging shut. For a long pause then, complete silence filled the room, the baker and the Princess trading confused glances between one another as they stared at the box in expectation.

“Um…” Twilight began. “Pinkie, aren’t you going to-?”

The sound of the door swinging open caught their ears, wherein the two occupants found none other than Pinkie herself exiting the room, the cardboard box in tow. They looked back to where the box was, only to find that it was gone, barren of any trace of the pink little pony.

“How does she…?” Mrs. Cake started.

“I learned the hard way not to question it.” Twilight answered.

Trotting down the main plaza square, the lone, pink earth mare sung to herself as the cardboard box situated atop her bottom balanced itself to her beat. It was just a simple, ordinary, everyday cardboard box, and that was the way any ordinary pony would see such a box. All the while an essence of pure joy had painted itself to the mare’s lips. Her eyes clamped shut with eyebrows up, the giggle in her hum and the wiggling of her hips, Pinkie felt a sense she had thought she wouldn’t have felt this soon once again. For in her mind, she knew now exactly what she was doing.

“On the road~” She jingled. “To I-ma-gi-na-tion!” And she jangled.

Seconds after, her target laid in sight. The pony pranced ahead and sprang behind the cover of a barrel, peaking over the lid and across the plaza. Her eyes locked onto the human making his calm, confident stride towards the front entrance of Town Hall. This, however, was in no way scheduled within Pinkie Pie’s agenda of incredulous and preposterous behavior. In other words, she did not sense it. And for that, she knew something was amiss.

“What do we have here, a young man looking to fulfill his civic duties?” She nickered and shook her head. “Time to fix that.”

She dove into her mane and pulled out a small, pink and yellow notebook, flipping to a specific page with the title ‘Ways to make David avoid paying his taxes’ read atop. She went down the list carefully.

“Let’s see here…student loans? No, he’s too good for that.” She thought harder. “I could convince him to buy an RV…but those haven’t been invented yet.” She smashed the pencil against her forehead. “C’mon, you stupid ball of cotton candy, think, think! Aha, I got it!” She puffed her chest proudly. “No, wait! Ponies don’t have finger nails…” She glossed over her notebook, tossed it aside, and shrugged. “Meh, I’ll just wing it.”

In that very moment, the uninvited sensation that the boy felt himself being watched had flooded his nervous system. Instinct told him to turn and face whatever presence was looming upon him, as he knew and had told himself before that predators chase backs. It quickly dawned upon him that there were no predators in the heart of Ponyville. This being, as he dreaded, was the pure embodiment of fear and intimidation, and that being had appeared to him…in the form of a pink, fluffy, cotton-candy maned pony. Only a tad larger than the common house cat, of course.

“If you’re thinking about running, then you should suppress those urges.” Pinkie Pie informed. “It’s for your own good.”

“I don’t think running would do me any good, anyways.” He quavered a little. “I take it you’re here to harness my soul?”

“Just a bit of your time.” She smiled brightly and knowingly. “And, your imagination, if you wouldn’t mind.” She paused and giggled to herself. “Well, actually, I guess you would mind since it takes a bit of that brain power stuff Twilight is always talking about to get that creativity going. Y’know, give your noggin a joggin’? Grind the mind? Train the brain? That reminds me, I once had this super smarty-smart thought, and it’s about the trolley dilemma. Since the bodies are on the tracks but the people’s heads are on the ground off to the side, wouldn’t it just make sense to take their brain out and switch them into a new body to save them-”

“What’s with the box?” David intentionally interrupted.

If it hadn’t been for her objective it would’ve been a miracle that the pink pony paused in her spree of speech. She plastered a grin and swung the item in mention around, placing the cardboard container between the two of them and sprawling her hooves in presentation. The mare took a great, big gulp of air as though a dealer at a car lot were sneaking up on an unsuspecting, innocent family, but that wasn’t exactly why David had prepared to place his hands over his ears. Alas, the pony had gone frozen, struck solid. The boy reveled in finally being able to look at her sitting still for more than five seconds. She pointed a hoof into the box.

“Get in.”

“If I didn’t know you, I would think this was Ponyville custom for enhanced interrogation.” The boy supposed, sitting in the fetal position. “No, scratch that, I really don’t know you.”

“That’s why I said I’m here to help.” Pinkie chirped. “In fact, you’ll know a whole bunch more about yourself than anypony else after we’re done.”

“Then could you be so kind as to explain why we need to sit in a cardboard box in the middle of the park?” The tips of his fingers grazed the inner walls of the box. “This thing looked smaller from the outside.”

“That’s because it’s a box of leaves, silly!” Pinkie snorted. “Get it? Because who leaves a perfectly good box laying around?”

The imitation of a rolling tumbleweed glided across the boy’s eyes. Pinkie sat back in anticipation of a fit of laughter, but not a giggle came from the young human’s lungs. Not a snort, not even a snicker. Her ears and mane began to deflate, her eyes widening evermore with complete and utter disbelief. Just how old was the boy anyhow? No, that didn’t matter, it shouldn’t. What mattered most was the objective at hoof, and hopefully soon enough at hand too, as the bubbly little pony intently swerved around to take up the reigns to their great escapade.

“Come with me, and you’ll be, in a world of your imagination~” She sang.

“Imagination?”

“Not to be confused with the nation of ‘Imagi.’” She chirped.

“I don’t think a place like that exists.”

“Not with that attitude, it doesn’t!” She declared triumphantly. “Just think about this for a moment, won’t you?” She shifted the gear into drive, and began rolling along. “You and I are on the road, and that road leads to a place where only you and I can go. It’s but a teensy-tiny, hop-skip, leap and a hooray away~! A few bumps in the road are bound to occur, you’ll have some second thoughts, that’s for sure. But remember this, and keep in mind, this is no ordinary, lucrative, promotional trip. It is a destiny, an adventure, a journey into the mind. And the best part? It’s all your own design~!”

“I will agree, that the child in me, seems a tad and a tiny tempted.” He confessed. “But I ought to inform you, of the dangers that come disclosed, when we venture to the land of the ception. Razor blades, guns, knives, and a bunch of other things that seem not so kind. I am a boy, you see? And as I grew up with my brothers, it always seemed a contest at who was best at killing the other.”

“Just take a sip of my imaginary tea, sit back and relax, you’ll see.” She attested. “The wonders of this world you are about to conceive, resemble your most amazing and captivating dream-”

“Pinkie, did you put drugs in this tea?” The boy licked his lips with suspicion.

The earth pony came to a screeching, brake slamming halt, the boy lurching forward and over the mare as the tires of their imaginary train ground and scraped against the rainbow tinted rails. With the energy of a thousand stern and strict mothers, the party pony spun around and shoved a hoof into his chest.

“How could you ever say something like that?! I would never do something so…so…so stupid! So…lame and uncool!” She growled. “The only way to ruin a party is by taking shortcuts, and I do not take shortcuts, and neither should you!”

“Is it just me, or did this just turn into a shanty, drug P.S.A.?” The boy shrugged.

“Besides, acid isn’t drugs.” She crossed her hooves. “It’s just stuff that sizzles and burns through floors.”

“Wait…” The boy paused, eyes wide as ever. “…what?”

“All I wanted was for you to have a little fun.” Pinkie confessed. “More importantly, I wanted to remind you what it was like to see the world through the lens of your imagination.”

“By putting acid in my chamomile?!” He slammed down the fragile ceramic and gripped the mare by her collar. Her imaginary collar, that is. “Forget the tea, I don’t even know what flavor it is anymore! What did you do to my drink?!”

Pinkie Pie curled her lips inwards, tears forming at the creases of her eyes.

“You WHAT?!”

“Don’t you get it, Davey?” Pinkie couldn’t take it anymore. “This is all your imagination. You thought I actually gave you some tea to drink, but it turns out you do have a bit of creativity left in that human-sized head of yours after all.”

He sat back and stared down at his hands, wherein nothing laid between them, only the vacant air of the cardboard box they laid within. His sights and his senses all focused back to the interior of their small cradle, but Pinkie Pie was persistent as ever in her efforts, that childish glitter remaining yet in her sky-blue eyes.

“I still don’t understand.” The boy began again. “Why do you want me to do this?”

“It never hurts to take a moment to stop, calm down, and relax.” She emphasized with a breath. “Sometimes, we’re meant to think of the world the way that we want to. When you think of the solution, you’ll start to think of the steps to get there, too.” The pony turned back to him, wide-eyed and excited. “Say, wanna see the place I always go to when I need to take a moment to calm down?”

“You? Calming down?” He gave her a side-eye.

“Unbelievable, right?” She snorted and chortled. “That’s the first step to entering the world of imagination. Realizing the unbelievable into a world that you can believe in.”

Slowly, the walls of the box crumbled and contorted, a world before them taking shape. Howling winds, roaring fires, crashing waves and crumbling stones. It was as though an entire planet was being born before the beholder’s very eyes. With the ease and grace of a single breath, everything became calm, quiet, and still. The ground was blanketed in a soft, green grass from every spot on the horizon, hills and humps appearing here and there, a few stones with healthy amounts of moss covered over their gray tops. Trees sprung from the earth and sprouted leaves of many hues of green, the majority of them appearing rather small, all except for one tree in particular. It stood strong and hearty, shadowing over an acre or two of land as the branches sprouted from atop in all directions. It was the pinnacle of the entire field.

Finally, upon a patch of soft, dusty dirt, both David and Pinkie Pie sat idly as the new world around them added its finishing touches. Clouds were painted into the soft blue sky, the illusion of wind sailing them across the heavens. The boy looked upon the scenery and all that he basked within, and could find no other words to describe its beauty. It was the definition of tranquility, illustrated onto God’s canvas.

“I give you…” Pinkie began a drumroll out of nowhere. “Tranquility!”

“It’s beautiful.” David breathed, and paused as he looked around. “It’s uh…nothing too apart from Equestrian scenery, but nonetheless it is very beautiful.”

“Isn’t it?” Pinkie agreed. “Believe it or not, even I need a few moments to calm down every now and then. So, I come here.”

“It’s very calming indeed.” David nodded. “Sorry that I must intrude upon it.”

“No worries.” She chirped back. “Besides, you’ve already been here.”

“I have?”

“Yu-huh! I imagined you as a girl in this one.”

“You…what?”

“See, there you are right now!” And shot a hoof towards the great, tall tree.

David strode a gaze across the expanse of grass and to the tree in question. Sure enough, standing beneath the branches of the great oak, stood a figure. It’s figure was that of a human, surely evermore, shaped like that of a female. A spark all too familiar filled the deepest recesses of the boy’s mind. He had recognized something, he had remembered.

“A girl…?” He asked, perplexed.

“Yupperonee!” Pinkie did a twirl. “It’s kinda weird, though. When I tried to imagine you as a girl, you didn’t really look like what I’d imagine you to look like. I just couldn’t place my hoof on it…”

The uncertainty settled in as the boy realized not even Pinkie could quite comprehend what was going on here. David had been gazing at this girl from afar, and without even getting a closer look, he already knew it was her. He had met this person before. Yet, she did not exist, she shouldn’t exist, and David knew that better than anyone else.

“Especially considering that my imagination should have willed such an image into existence, but it just didn’t imagine what I was imagining.” Pinkie’s head spun around. “Weird, huh?”

“That’s…not possible.” David led a shaky finger towards the figure beneath the tree. “It can’t be. Is it?”

Pinkie simply shrugged.

The boy took a mighty step back, rubbed his temples and struggled to breath. Slowly, he found his composure and exercised his lungs. In and out, in and out. “It’s just Pinkie Pie.” He told himself. “Just Pinkie Pie. Just Pinkie…being Pie.”

He looked down at the pink pony once again, and realized he had just accidentally imagined her as a pie.

“Oh crap!” He knelt down over the pie. “Pinkie, I-I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to! Here, I’ll fix this.”

“I’m over here, silly!” The pony hollered and waved, hopping back in his direction. “Those pies show up around here all the time, feel free to take one home.”

“What-? What did you just do?” He asked fervently.

“I just talked to her.” Pinkie strode up. “Well, talked to you.”

David stood wary, shaking a little. “And…what did she say?”

“Just the same things you do.” She answered. “Like ‘wait, what?’ after someone says something to you, because you weren’t listening again.”

“Wait, wha-”

“Which is weird, because I didn’t imagine her to be like that either.” She shrugged, lifting the pie with the tip of her mane. “Ah well, I mean, it is you after all, isn’t it?” Pinkie wondered.

“I’m not even sure what any of this is anymore.” The boy fessed.

The party mare dangled the pie in front of her face and got a scoop full with her tongue. She chewed on the imaginary pastry for a moment as she prodded at her chin, thinking to herself between gnaws and nibbles. She gulped down the helping and nodded contently. “I think you should go talk to her.”

“R-Really?” He hesitated.

“Well, go talk to you.” She winked.

“Go talk to me, huh?” The boy said calmly, slowly looking upon the situation with a hint of new resolve. The words of the draconequus slithered their way into his consciousness. Do you want to know where the answers have been hiding this entire time? There! Right there! There was a familiar sting upon his head. The answers were within his own mind, his own being. They were always right in front of him, and now, so was she. As Pinkie Pie dove into her pie and hopped away contently, the boy was left on his own, and only the girl remained for his approach.

He closed the distance between them, already aware that she was aware of his presence. As the shade fell over him, the girl standing beneath the tree turned and looked back at herself. The boy standing beneath the tree had stared on, looking at himself. There they stood in silence, completely alone, yet, in the presence of two. It was simultaneous perplexity. A paradox in play. The girl placed her hand upon the tree, gazing up at it and beginning her speech.

“Do you know how old this tree is?” She asked.

“No.” He answered. “But it seems familiar.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” She agreed. “I thought that maybe every tree seemed familiar.”

“But now I’m sure of this one.” He nodded.

The girl looked back, and a small smile crept to her face. “So, this is where I find you?” She giggled.

“I suppose I knew this would eventually happen.”

“But not in a place like this.” She finished.

As soon as they had looked into one another’s eyes, David had felt it instantaneously. It was as though he was looking into a mirror. Not at a mirror, but into a mirror.

The beauty of it all was almost too much for them to ignore, sitting beneath the branches and leaves of the great, green oak as they basked in the majesty of the fields all around them. They knew each other just as well as the other, they had seen each other every day, listened to each other and talked to each other, they just didn’t realize it until now. It was no wonder they could both sit within each other’s company as nothing but silence reigned over their interaction. Their backs to the tree, sitting side by side, and eyes out on the field. A happy, little, pink pony rolled about in the grass, frolicking with the butterflies, all of which were blue.

“So, you know Pinkie Pie?” David finally asked.

“Of course.” The girl sat up and nodded. “Though, not exactly in the way she thinks I do.”

“What do you mean?” He asked her.

She sat back against the tree and breathed. “Both you and I know there’s a lot to explain here. You’re gonna have to explain some things to me, and I’m gonna have to explain some things to you. The thing is, we both know what we’re already going to say, because well…you get the picture, right?”

“Alright then.” He waited. “Go ahead and say it.”

And thus she told. “I know about the show back on our home planet, Earth. I know about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I know about the characters, the songs, the merch, the fandom. I myself am an avid fan, after all. I’ve watched the episodes many times over, and so have you.” She went on. “The only thing you and I can’t seem to figure out is whether we loved the show initially and on our own accord, or if one’s attachment to the show had spawned the joy that the other felt for it. In other words, you felt the same things I did in that moment, and I felt the same things you did.”

“In that moment?” He wondered.

“Don’t you remember?” She cocked her head. “The day you discovered this show.”

The boy blinked, searching the recesses of his mind. “I do remember that day.” He mumbled. “You felt it too, didn’t you?”

She smiled and nodded.

“It’s strange, and always will be.” He closed his eyes, slowly rubbing his temples. “I can’t quite explain how it happened, but it just happened. When I looked up at that television screen, it was like something clicked in my head. It was like a…a spark.”

She watched as his eyes slowly opened in realization.

“When was that day?”

“I don’t recall.” She shook her head. “But it was a Sunday, wasn’t it? Mom was taking me to church, I remember.”

“I think you’re right.” He scratched his chin. “The day you and I became so enraptured by this show was the day that may have very well changed our lives. I remember sitting in the pews, waiting for the church services to move along, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t shake that inexplicable feeling. I just…had to watch it.”

“And that was the day it all began.” She pawned. “The day it was cast upon us…”

“…the spell.” He finished.

The naming of such a phenomenon had never even entered his range of thought prior to his meeting with the self beneath the tree. He knew now that what had enraptured him to this show was this strange fate, to be cast upon a plane of irony, and bound to the spell. Just what was the spell? What were its effects? Most importantly, how could one atone for it? How could one hope to free themselves from the shackles that bind them, the shadows that clouded their eyes, and the ever enclosing walls of the cavern. The boy began again to say something, to stand up and do something, but he knew better this time. He knew to hold himself to his wits and focus on his mind. To breath, to wait, to listen. The girl crawled closer, sat next to him, and rested a hand to his shoulder.

“You’ve been through a lot so far, haven’t you?” She attempted.

“Yeah…” He mumbled.

“Tell me about it, all of it.” She smiled with reassurance. “I’ll listen.”

And so he did. Not a detail was left out, not a flicker of his journey thus far left unspoken. The girl sat criss-crossed, one hand tucked beneath her breast and the other at her chin. She nodded on and listened to the boy and the adventure he had to tell. All the problems he had been facing, both externally and internally. It was at the mention his mental strife that the girl’s eyes grew concerning, apologetic even. It was at this point he realized that he had been talking to a girl this whole time, and not to mention for this long, too. Regardless if this was only an amalgamation of some pink, little equine’s mind.

Eventually, the girl thought for a moment and deciphered the best course of action the boy ought to take. She agreed with what Discord had told him. Despite his mischievous demeanor, the serpent possessed some sense of rationality in his tellings. If the boy were to truly get to the bottom of things, it would take much more than a single stroke of rationality.

Then, she began to cry.

Tears formed at the creases of her eyes and dribbled down her cheeks. The boy raised his hands in alarm, expectantly hesitant to lay a hand on her.

“I-I’m sorry, it’s just…” She sniveled. “I’m going through a lot of stupid stuff in my life right now. Usually I can take it, like a good girl.” She wiped an arm across her nose. “After all, that’s what I’m supposed to do, right?”

“No.” He said boldly. “I think it takes a lot of guts to cry.”

“Y-You do?” She looked up in wonder.

“I mean-” He tried again. “Holding back your true feelings is the coward’s way out. Sure, there’s some times when we gotta get going when the going gets rough, but that only makes it all the more harder to realize that every once in a while, we need to let our emotions fly. It’s what makes us human.”

She sniffled and rubbed her arm. “Yeah…I guess you’re right.”

The boy sought to return her gesture, and rested a hand to her shoulder. “Tell me all about it.” He smiled.

And so she did.

As he looked his way past the shade of the branches and onward to the green pasture, the pink pony was in sight, sitting happily upon a stone of moss blowing one bubble after another into the clear, blue sky. She was calm and content in her own little realm of imagination. Nothing out of the ordinary, nor even the extraordinary, and the boy felt he knew why. She wanted him to have this conversation, this meeting beneath the tree. With due time, that meeting had come to a close, and the boy stood to approach the pony afar. As the two said their goodbyes, a tinge of regret nipped at the back of his mind. He knew to stop this time.

“David.” The girl called.

He turned and greeted his counterpart, holding out his hand as she approached with a strange, yet peculiar item in her grasp. It was the book, gifted to him from Twilight. The strange tree on the front cover was still all but an enigma to him. He glanced up at the great tree in question, and met the girl’s understanding gaze.

“It’s called the Kabbalah.” She explained. “It’s a Jewish thing, but don’t worry, it’s nothing sketchy. Plus, there’s a lot more to it than we think.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“So do I, but we gotta go with our gut, sometimes.”

He glanced down at the book.

“You’re going to need this.” She said.

The boy looked the book over once more, took it into his grasp, and returned the tome to his pocket. “Thanks.” He muttered kindly, turning to the pony once again. He paused and glanced back to the girl. “Um, will we ever see each other again?” He asked her.

“I was going to ask you the same thing.” She replied. “But…”

“We already have.”

The words were spoken in unison. The two paused and gazed somewhat awkwardly upon one another. Then, they began to laugh. It was a promise, then. A promise as sure as the person staring back at them in the mirror.

With a final burst of effort, the flaps of the cardboard box broke apart, an entire refrigerator being thrown to the side as the boy and the pony emerged from the confines of their fantasy prison. Time and time again Pinkie had encouraged the boy to pick the lock of the cell, but to no avail. The stench of the jail was already too much for him to bare, and when the pony began to imagine a bomb for him to diffuse, he met the walls with a desperate and frantic force. They both peeked over the edge and eyed their surroundings carefully, their nostrils picking up on the majority of their senses.

“Uh, Pinkie?” David began calmly. “Did it ever occur to you that leaving a cardboard box in the middle of the park might’ve led the garbage ponies to, I dunno, drop us off somewhere else?”

“Aw, c’mon Davey, quit being such a party pooper.” Pinkie cast a diaper aside in an effort to rid the smell. “I guess that one didn’t fly so good.” She giggled at her own joke, acknowledging the flies buzzing about.

“Stop wasting effort, let’s just get the hell outta’ this dump.” He stumbled out of the container, landing palms down to the trash below. “What the-?”

He swiped his hands past the muck and scum, revealing a rather familiar piece of cloth beneath. Scooping the piece in question, he surveyed its make and admired the symbol on front.

“I recognize this.” He muttered to himself. It was Dinky’s scarf.