Spotlight

She was running from the spotlight. Running from herself.
“And I can never escape.”

Hi, Alan the Human here, with the long-awaited next chapter of my fanfic “Pinkie Pie”, complete with illustrations by my usual collaborator. I know, it’s been six months. A long time to wait. But I really wrote myself into a corner last chapter, and it took this long for my muse to come back to me. It’s…a strange chapter, even stranger than the earlier ones. Normally I’d have my editor “de-strange” it like she usually does, but a number of you were really enthusiastic with the rough draft I linked last time around, so I guess I’ll let you all read this one as it came to me, at least until next week when Straddy comes back from vacation. So, um…don’t be too rough on it.

6. Chapter Pinkie Pie Pinkamena 1

Friday Night, July 2, 1108

On a barren rocky salt flat more than a hundred miles northeast of Ponyville, a narrow path twisted its way through the darkness, illuminated only by the light of a small lantern resting on the back of a pink earth pony. This pony trudged her way along the path in sullen silence. With every step forward, she seemed to get more and more tense.

The source of her tension must have been the large wooden sign she was approaching, supported on two posts, located on the side of the path. The traveler stopped when there was enough light to read it. “STARLIGHT,” the sign proclaimed, “Village of the Markless.”

The pink pony stopped before the sign. But this was not the bright pink party pony with the cotton candy mane and tail that we know and love, although she bore a cutie mark of three balloons. The pony looked like that pony if the lantern utterly failed to illuminate her, like she was a pony of the shadows. And her mane and tail were flat.

“I am not her,” the pony proclaimed to the sign in a low voice. “I am Pinkamena Diane Pie, and I think you know why I am here.”

“Well, I think I can make a pretty good guess,” said the tired voice of an older pony as she emerged from behind the sign.

Pinkamena squeaked in shock. She looked around for somewhere to hide, ending up on the other side of the sign.

I don’t know why she was shocked. The newcomer had a lantern on her own back and had been walking this way for several minutes.

Pinkamena growled at the sign in annoyance, then put a hoof over her mouth to try and be quiet. She then cautiously peeked around the sign at the other pony.

“Huh,” that pony said to herself. She had assumed that the pink pony was aware of her approach. Because otherwise she was talking to the… She looked suspiciously at the sign. She then gave an appraising look into the eyes peeking at her, causing another squeak as the pony ducked back behind the sign. In that brief moment of eye contact, she had noticed a complete lack of recognition in Pinkamena’s eyes, despite the fact that the visitor was here to see her.

“Hm?” asked Pinkamena, taking another peak at the other pony.

She was a unicorn, with a pinkish-purple coat with a purple mane and tail with a cyan stripe down the middle. The mane was cut straight in front, parted around the horn, and curled away from her head like the curve of a question mark, the tail curving in the exact same way. She had a similarly curving cutie mark, of a purple and white star descending along a turquoise and cyan trail. This was Starlight Glimmer, the mayor of The Village.

‘Is that “Miss”, “Mrs.”, or “Ms.”?’ Pinkamena wondered to herself as she peeked out.

Ms.

“M…Ms. Glimmer. I…I’m glad to have finally met you,” Pinkamena stammered, bowing her head slightly at the end.

That was too much eye contact for her, because she ducked back behind the sign. A moment later she had gathered the nerve to speak to Starlight without the eye contact. “I am here for you to remove my cutie mark. That’s what you do, right?” She put on a secret smile at the sign as she said this.

Wait, she’s removing her cutie mark? You can do that?

‘She can. And I am.’

“Yes,” answered Starlight in a resigned tone, “I suppose that is what I do.” She then resumed her attempt to figure out who the visitor was actually talking to at the beginning of their encounter. Unable to figure this mystery out, she finally put on a friendly smile and held out a hoof in welcome, half expecting that the gesture would never be reciprocated. “Welcome to my village. What’s your name?”

She heard a bout of heavy breathing. “Calm down, calm down,” Starlight heard the pink pony say to herself. “She’s not going to eat you. She’s not going to eat you.”

Starlight idly reached a hoof up to her mouth to check if she had grown fangs in the last few hours. She had a couple of brilliant witticisms she could have delivered at that moment but decided instead to remain silent as she put her hoof back down.

The younger pony slowly edged herself around the sign. “Pinkamena,” she said finally. “Pinkamena Diane Pie.”

Starlight looked her over, seeing that she was a teenage filly. (Since when?) The top of her head was level with Starlight’s eyeline, and she was rather on the wiry side in her physique.

Pinkamena Diane Pie. It was a curious name, Starlight reflected. Other than “Pie”, neither “Pinkamena” nor “Diane” appeared to have an obvious meaning, like the majority of pony names. She couldn’t picture a “pinkamena diane pie” like she could picture a “starlight glimmer” or a “double diamond” (ski course).

That last thought made her sad, for reasons of backstory that I’ll reveal if I ever write a solo story about this original character.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Starlight finally said.

Pinkamena sighed in relief at not getting chewed out, either literally or metaphorically. She idly glanced over at the sign, and then curiously over at Starlight. “Um…did…did you actually name the village after yourself?” she asked. She immediately regretted asking something so provocative and ducked back behind the sign.

Starlight looked over at her name on the sign with a frown. “No,” she said.

Pinkamena’s knees shook from the tone alone.

“No, wait—I’m not mad at you. You see, I originally had no name for this village, as I thought it was unnecessary. However, the ponies of Amber Durum thought differently and made that sign for us.”

“And you’ve never thought of replacing it with one made by your villagers?”

Followers.

‘Nope, too creepy. I’m sticking to “villagers”.’

It was another provocative question, asked from the safety of the other side of the sign.

Starlight thought of the kind of sign that her Followers could make. “It’s fine,” she said with a shrug. She carefully peeked her head around to Pinkamena’s side of the sign and was gratified to not be given a startled squeak. “Now please follow me, and I’ll show you The Village.” She walked past the filly and began to descend the side of a hill towards a village made up of several parallel straight rows of identical houses, all of them apparently deserted.

Removing your cutie mark. I wonder what that would do to Pinkie?

Pinkamena waited for a few moments, then began to follow. As she saw that Starlight was not looking back at her, she put a serene smile on her face. She neither said nor thought a word the entire way to The Village.

(Yes, that’s what it’s called, with the capital letters. I really liked The Prisoner, OK?)

Inside The Village, Starlight Glimmer led Pinkamena to her house, the big one at the end of the centermost double row of houses. Taking some supplies out of a cart parked outside, she set to work, first providing illumination and then making a simple dinner for the two of them. It was a comfortable looking home, and the furnishings did much to calm Pinkamena’s nervousness towards her host.

“Go ahead and clean up,” Starlight instructed her. “The bathroom’s on the second floor.”

Pinkamena went upstairs, but instead of heading straight for the bathroom, she looked around until she found a full-length mirror in what must have been Starlight’s bedroom, then used it to get a good look at herself. She scowled at her cutie mark, then paid particular attention to her height and her face. “Too old…” she muttered to herself. Then, seeing something unusual in the reflection, she turned her head to note the extensive collection of kites hanging from hooks on the back wall. Only then did she go into the bathroom to clean up her appearance, afterwards returning to the living area.

Pinkamena looked around her, noting the paintings depicting several ponies waving towards the viewer, each of them signed by the pony depicted. All of the ponies were somewhat faded in color, rather like Pinkamena, and rather unlike the brightly coated Starlight. She also saw that all of the ponies in the portraits not only lacked normal cutie marks but instead possessed the same special mark: an equal sign, painted in dark gray. Again, Starlight was the exception with her distinct mark.

Starlight sat down at the small square dinner table, putting their food in the center. Pinkamena after a moment chose a spot next to Starlight rather than across from her. That way she could minimize the dreaded eye contact.

“I’ve made myself an expert in cutie mark problems,” Starlight told Pinkamena over the course of the meal. “In my experience, the most common problem…is…the empty striving…” She stopped herself with a sigh. “Look, I used to have a one-size-fits-all solution to cutie mark problems. My equalization process would remove the drive to be better than everypony else, the feeling of misery that came from finding that you can’t beat everypony, and the loneliness that came to those few ponies that could in fact beat everypony else and found that nopony wanted to be around them once that happened.

“But I’ve had a change of perspective. Losing your mark takes away something fundamental that makes a pony, a pony. I’m sure you have a problem. And I’m sure you think that removing your mark will fix it. But I assure you, it won’t.”

“Oh,” said Pinkamena, a spoon of lentils held in one hoof. “Is that the only reason why ponies wanted to remove their marks before?”

Starlight paused for a moment, before shrugging. “Well nowadays the most common reason is that the circumstances of the marking were so embarrassing that they wanted a second chance to get a good mark. But those are rather simple transactions for me. What would your case be like? What is troubling you?”

Pinkamena looked down at her bowl and sighed. “I’ll…I’ll tell you after dinner.” She shrunk a little as she considered how rude Starlight might see her statement. “Please?” she added.

“As you wish.” Starlight took a few more bites in silence before trying to start up the conversation again. “So, what do you do for a living?”

Pinkamena growled. A moment later she squeaked. “I…that’s part of my cutie mark problem, so I’d rather not…”

“Oh, right. Of course,” Starlight said. She waited for her guest to suggest a safe topic of conversation.

She didn’t. So, the rest of the meal was conducted in silence.

Afterwards, Pinkamena showed her appreciation by expertly cleaning the dishes.

“Alright, follow me,” Starlight said, leading Pinkamena out of her house and taking an immediate left turn to walk up to the unlocked door of the nearest house. She opened the door and gestured for the pink earth pony to enter.

Pinkamena spent a moment glancing over at the cottage opposite hers, the one that would be on the right side from the point of view of Starlight’s cottage. It had what was once a nice little herb garden in front, long since withered to the barest remains.

As for Pinkamena’s new residence, it was a rather small, one room thatched cottage, but it did the job, especially for a pony who brought so little baggage with her. She walked around the narrow space, looking out the window into the darkness for a moment before pulling a curtain to cover it. On the nightstand she placed her only possession, a framed faded photograph of her family, showing signs of ten to thirty years of aging.

Starlight had only a moment to get a look at it. There was a conservatively dressed father and three filly daughters, none of whom were Pinkamena. And, rather disconcertingly, there was a Nightmare Night symbol hanging on the wall behind them. Starlight was well familiar with the iconography of family photographs. Photography was a new technology, especially for rural families. They tended to pose rather stiffly, as they had for the portrait painters, with the parents on each side facing each other, and the children arranged in a row from oldest on the two ends to youngest in the middle, cutie marks—if any—proudly on display. And there was always a devotional symbol in the middle, most commonly a silhouette of Princess Celestia or “Celestia Bless This Home” or some favorite homily.

Pinkamena’s family choice of symbol expressed a wish for their home to be blessed by Nightmare Moon...a decade or perhaps two before she returned to Equestria.

Starlight took this all in in the time it took Pinkamena to climb up on the bed and settle herself down, sphinxlike, looking right at her. Any calm that might be assumed from the pose was belied by the nervousness of Pinkamena’s expression. Or maybe she was looking at herself in the mirror—one was mounted on the back of the door they had entered through.

Starlight shut that door behind her. “Would you like to tell me about your problems?” she asked after a pregnant pause.

“I, um…” Pinkamena looked at the family portrait, gathering her nerves. “This isn’t going to be easy for me. I always get so self-conscious wherever He…um.” She cast her eyes around her for a moment, seeming to gesture at the whole world. (Starlight had expected “he” to be a reference to the father in the portrait.) “Anyway…”

Starlight waited patiently.

“Getting my mark…changed me,” Pinkamena finally admitted.

“Well, that was kind of what I was saying earlier,” Starlight countered. “With the striving to be better than everypony else.”

“No!” Pinkamena cried, then put her hooves over her mouth in shock. “I’m sorry for that. I just mean that I changed. Into a completely different pony.” She sighed as she saw that Starlight was taking her words metaphorically rather than literally. “How old am I?” she asked Starlight. “Scan me and tell me how old I am.”

Starlight was rather taken aback. Usually, the last thing an earth pony or pegasus would allow was for a strange unicorn to cast strange spells upon them. “Alright…” Starlight asked cautiously. She started the routine spell, expecting Pinkamena to panic when she felt the beam briefly penetrate her. But Pinkamena sat patiently and waited expectantly.

“You’re twenty-four years, one month and twenty-nine days old,” Starlight said quickly, and then blinked in shock. The filly before her definitely looked younger than that. “Are you secretly a dragon?”

Pinkamena (rightly) looked at her like she had lost her mind.

“No, that’s stupid. Let me try again.” Starlight cast her spell a second time, sweeping it up and down Pinkamena’s entire body. “Your body’s that old, your cutie mark is eleven years, eleven months and ten days old, and your magic is…twelve years, two months and nineteen days old.

“But that’s impossible! A pony’s magic is born with their body—they can’t exist without it! How can you be out of sync?” She stepped forward and pulled Pinkamena’s head into a hug. “Who did this to you?”

Pinkamena trembled at the sudden contact. She pulled out of the embrace, saying, “Never mind about that—there’s nothing you can do about Him.”

Starlight caught the use of the capital “H”. “You think it was a god? There’s no such thing.”

Now it was Pinkamena who had Starlight in an embrace, wrapping her arms around one of Starlight’s. “You’re so lucky to think that,” she said. And then she realized how close she was to Starlight and suddenly scooted to the back of the bed.

With a sigh, Starlight returned to her former place. She waited for Pinkamena to return to her former pose sitting on the bed before continuing. “So, what did happen to you?”

Pinkie gestured at her mark. “Pinkie Pie happened to me.” Perhaps because she was no longer looking at Starlight, the words started to pour out of her. “If you don’t like the god explanation then it’s…I’m supposed to be a rock farmer. My whole family has been rock farmers. For generations. And I had no problem with that. It was my dream to become a rock farmer. And then I slipped up. For one tiny moment I saw a pretty light in the sky and thought of something silly…and then suddenly that’s what I became.” She looked at Starlight and was gratified that to see that this time her story was being believed.

“I, um…I became a clown,” Pinkamena said. Once again addressing her mark, she built up again. “A clown, in a family of desperate workers. We had no place for frivolity, for parties.” She spat out that last word. Literally spat it out, a few inches from Starlight’s hoof. “I was banished; my hoped-for life torn to shreds. But I couldn’t stop myself. Because Pinkie was in charge now, not me.” She pointed at the balloon mark when referring to herself in the third person. She looked up again and saw Starlight looking down at the spittle. “I’m sorry!” she cried out, jumping down from the bed. She used a fetlock to try and wipe away the stain. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sor–”

“Pinkamena!” Starlight exclaimed, pulling the other pony back up. “Get a hold of yourself.”

Pinkamena’s pupils shrank into dots. “Yes, ma’am,” she squeaked, shaking her head like a rag doll.

Starlight led Pinkamena back upon the bed. It seemed that she was most vocal in that position, and Starlight would rather hear the end of her story before midnight. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about Pinkie Pie? The pony you became when you got your cutie mark? Like what that cutie mark was for?”

Pinkamena sighed. “It was for parties. But not just for throwing them, but for knowing when to throw them. Which was all the time. She made it her life’s work to make every pony happy with parties. Whether they wanted it or not. More often than not, Pinkie just made everypony miserable.”

I…did she really think that?

“Absolutely. And now I…I have had enough. I don’t like…confrontations. But I have no choice. I may never receive the love of my family again—” a desperate glance at the photo “—but at least without this curséd mark I can finally have control over my life again.”

“Well!” Starlight proclaimed, at a loss for words. It took her a few minutes to collect herself. “First, I want you to know that I agree with you: that cutie mark has to go, and as soon as possible. It’s…unnatural. I can remove your mark, but not to give you an equals mark in exchange. I’m done with that. What I can do is to destroy your mark. Make you a blank flank again, so you can find a new destiny.”

“Yes. That is what we…what I want.”

Starlight frowned in thought. “I can’t do it until sunrise…err, moonrise tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow! But you said–”

Starlight stopped her with a raised hoof. “I need to do some research.” She looked down, tapping a hoof against her chin as she thought. “I’ll just need to pull an all-nighter, which isn’t a problem for me, as I don’t really sleep.”

Starlight failed to notice Pinkamena’s eyes go wide at this casual revelation.

Meanwhile Starlight continued her rambling. “I just need to make sure that mark removal is the best way to handle this, and to make sure that it won’t hurt you.” She then looked up at Pinkamena. “In the meantime, spend tonight thinking this through. I’d ask you to get a good night’s sleep, except that I know that there’s no chance of that.

“Make your peace with, um, Pinkie Pie. And then consider what you are going to do with your life after I remove your mark. You said you can’t go home. You could choose to live here. I do not charge rent; I only ask that you do what you can to help me and anypony else who could come to visit. Or you could leave, to seek your destiny. All…most of my markless ponies will be here in the Village in another day or two. They would all be willing to help you start over. It’s your choice to stay or to leave.”

The thought of staying in the village caused Pinkamena to glance nervously up at the ceiling, and to imagine the night sky above it. “I…I really shouldn’t stay here too long,” she admitted. “It could be dangerous…for both of us.”

Starlight scoffed. “Pinkamena, you underestimate me,” she said with a smile. “I’m more than capable of handling any problems my Followers bring with them.” ‘Even gods,’ she thought to herself with a smirk.

“Well…I suppose we might be safe for one night.”

“Excellent,” said Starlight. She used her magic to slide open the window, and then she freshened up the bedsheets. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.

“Goodnight, Ms. Glimmer.”

“Goodnight, Pinkamena.” And then Starlight let herself out.

…And this is where my editor will probably end the chapter.

But Starlight did not walk away. She wanted to see if Pinkamena might start monologuing again, so she stayed standing in front of the door. She wasn’t pressing her ear against that door, but she wasn’t exactly closing her ears to anything she might overhear, either.

After a few moments, she was rewarded with the angry voice of Pinkamena talking to herself drifting out of the window: “There. It’s done. Pinkie says goodbye first thing tomorrow. Your story is over.

“I want this. She wants this. And you know that she wants this. You saw everything go down at that old castle. The Elements of Harmony failed, because of her.”

OK, now Starlight’s ear was pressed tight against the door.

“Those other ponies were…you saw what Nightmare Moon did to them! Because of her idiotic prank! Nightmare Moon won…because of Pinkie Pie! Tell him, Pinkie. Tell him I’m right.”

“A…Alan? Pinkamena was right. I made a terrible mistake. Everypony is in terrible trouble, because of me. I need to go away. For good. Please…please stop writing about me.”

Starlight quickly stepped back from the door, confusion written across her face. That second voice…it could have been Pinkamena pretending to be somepony else. But it sounded…different. It sounded…magical.

This…this was big. This was the pony that Nightmare Moon was looking for. She did indeed need to leave The Village as soon as possible, considering that the Empress herself was scheduled to show up for a personal inspection of The Village in only three ~~days~~ ~~nights~~ evenings. (Ugh.)

But at the same time Pinkamena was a young mare who needed her far more than any of her Followers had for years. A pony in trouble because of her cutie mark. And nopony in Equestria understood cutie marks better than Starlight Glimmer. She had to help this strange, confused pony. Because nopony else possibly could.