Friends

Friends

I saw friendship all around me, but now I realize it was never mine to begin with.

The other ponies, the five who've been in my dreams more than any other... They all acted so strangely today, seeing me as myself for the first time. None of them could make the party, and at first I thought they were legitimate reasons. But they were just making desperate excuses to not spend time with me; I can see it now. They don't like me. They don't like my parties. This friendship I've been dreaming of, it's never included me. It never has.

I don't care about the dreams or the friends anymore. All I wanted was closure when I went searching for Spike, and now I've got it. If bringing a bunch of gems into existence and kidnapping the little dragon destroys my dreams for the rest of my life, that's just a risk I had to take. I knew the little hungry dragon would crack. I knew he'd tell me the truth. A nice, big gem always brings out the truth in him. It always has.

But now? Armed with the truth, so willingly brought out by Spike and the gems I created? I don't even think I want to dream anymore. My friends all like dream me, they all like dream me's parties. But real me? No, no... That would be downright silly, liking the real me. Real me is boring and dull, and keeps a rock underneath her bed. Real me is just a filly in a farm, without a friend in the world. Real me breaks and rolls rocks around each and every single day, and doesn't even have time to play. So why would real me want dream friends? I can make friends in this dream, right here, right now, that would travel back to reality with me.

There are rocks outside. Rocks will be my friends. They'll stay by my side. The rocks back home see me every day, they'll warm up to me. There's a little clump of lint over there, on one of my old dream dresses. Lint won't be different from one world to the next. Lint will never change. Neither will the turnips, over there.

We have turnips on the farm. All I have to do is save one from the kitchen and bring it into the sanctuary of my room. We can hang out during rest time, or maybe we can miss sleep and stay up all night. Turnips need very little sleep, after all. Flour, too. We have lots of flour at the farm. Just the bag, though. We eat so much bread, I don't think a full bag of flour gone missing will be overlooked. The flour bag will be full in my dreams, though. Just to remind me which world is reality, and which world is a figment of my imagination.

All four of them already have such unique personalities... I hope those don't change when I wake up, too. They might be getting impatient now, so I guess it's time to get this party started.

"Thank you all so much for coming! It means so much to Gummy," I say. It means so much to me, too. More than they'll ever know. They're my only friends in the whole wide world, and they're here with me. That's all that really matters.

"Could I have some more punch?" says Mr. Turnip. He finished his last cup so fast, I'm not sure if I should give him some more. Too much punch for one turnip is a bad thing, after all. But this is a party, and parties are fun because you can let go of your worries. And who am I to deny him that?

"Well, of course you can have some more punch, Mr. Turnip!" No point in leaving a guest waiting, so I rush over to get a nice cup of punch. I remember, quite some time ago, when I would make sure all of my party guests were happy. Mr. Turnip's fine for now, so my attention turns to Rocky. Rocky's my favorite friend, but I won't let the others know.

The others might get jealous of Rocky and fight with each other for my affection. Fighting friends aren't happy friends, so I'll do whatever it takes to keep them from fighting. It just makes me so happy, seeing them happy. It always does.

This party's getting a little out of hand, in a good way. They all seem to want me to divorce my old traitor friends, but I'm not sure if I can. This isn't just a regular party anymore; it's more of an intervention now. But an intervention to break friends apart? Not even mentioning us being Equestria's last hope of defense should something happen, but I don't care. The friends and the Elements, they only exist in my dreams.

My friends are right. I don't need to be friends with dream me's friends. I don't even have to talk to them. They're for dream me, not real me. They don't even care about real me, so why should I care about them? I shouldn't care about them, and that's that. It's a great revelation, and my friends are all showing me their support. I'm gonna tell them exactly what I'm going to do, and we can leave all of those meanies behind and get back to the party. Mr. Turnip said something about not talking to them, so this is the perfect opportunity to speak my mind.

"You know what? I’m not gonna speak to them ever again. And I’m not gonna invite them to another party as long as I live! They don’t deserve to be invited to my parties. Not after the way they’ve been acting."

My little speech there was apparently pretty good, for my friends are all cheering and encouraging me. I know now that these four friends are all the friends I'll ever need, and they'll stay with me whether I'm dreaming or not. There's a knocking at the door now. I wonder who it could be. I don't really feel like answering it, though. I'll just not answer it and let them leave.

But of course, I'll have no such luck. The door opens, and in comes Rainbow Dash.

"Pinkamena."

Wait. Pinkamena? Nopony calls me Pinkamena in my dreams, so why is Rainbow calling me Pinkamena?

"Pinkamena. Wake up."

Oh. Somepony's trying to wake me up, and I'm just hearing them through Rainbow. That makes sense. I look around really fast to check up on my friends. It might be some trouble gathering them all in the real world, but that's fine. As long as they're still my friends, everything will be just fine. I'm not exactly sure how to wake myself up mid-dream, so I just place myself on top of a really high cloud and fall, and fall, and fall. And then the ground is just a few inches away from me.

And that's the end of my first-ever lucid dream. My eyes flutter open and the world is a blur, so I close them again.

"Pinkamena?"

I groan in response. I open my eyes again, and I'm greeted with the lovely sight of one of my bedroom walls. Whoever woke me up is probably somewhere off to the side of my bed, I guess. I don't really care. I can't even have friends in my dreams anymore. Forget all that crazy turnip nonsense, I don't even know why I thought that was a good idea.

"Pinkamena, are you alright?"

Am I alright? I don't know. My dreams probably won't be the same from now on, and those were pretty much the only things I looked forward to every day. I probably won't even be able to handle a few weeks of rock farming if they change for the worse.

"Pinkamena, please talk to me."

Now that's different. There's actually concern in that voice, something I haven't heard outside of dreamland. Not only that, but talking? Talking's usually only for my parents when they're being all stern and commandy, not for talking about your problems. Those two are more than enough reasons for me to turn to my other side, and look straight at my sister. There are tears in her eyes.