Rebuilding Pinkie Pie

“What do you mean she’s not a real person?” Rainbow Dash exploded.

“Okay, okay, ‘real’ was a poor choice of words,” Twilight made a placating gesture. “What would be a better term, you think? ‘Proper?’ ‘Whole?’”

The strange realization was the culmination of a whole series of novel magical experiments, conducted on- Twilight had to admit, test subjects did not get much more unreliable than Pinkie Pie, but she was quite sure she had the right of it this time.

All Equestrian beings- not just ponies, but all beings- are made up of two basic parts: “Corpus,” or body, and “Animus,” meaning spirit. Of course, Twilight wanted to give her friends the more advanced breakdown, and she went on to lecture that while the body is simply Corpus and nothing else, the Animus is the magical membrane that encompasses the four soul cells that ultimately make up somepony’s personality and being. Of these there is Custos, the guardian, Agito, the motivation, Egeo, the romantic, and finally, Hedon. Nailing down what Hedon is is tricky for both philosophers and exorcists alike, as the pursuit of pleasure is often attributed to domain of Agito and, when concerning “physical intimaticies,” Egeo, but the most common attribution is simply: “Hedon, the happy.” Every single one contains a copy of a soul and all its memories, and under normal circumstances, wage a never-ending war within the mind of the being for dominance. Often, Custos wins a conditional victory over all the others, as it tends to be the strongest in-

“Ponish, Twilight, please?” Rarity raised a hoof to stop her before she could get too off track.

“She’s exactly one quarter of a whole pony. You’ll never guess which one,” Twilight deadpanned. “... Technically one eighth, if you count her body being missing.”

“But she’s right there!” Rainbow Dash gestured at Pinkie Pie, who was indeed standing right beside Twilight, absentmindedly juggling with her hind legs while doing a hoofstand.

“Ghost,” Twilight dismissed the argument. “You ever notice her appearing out of nowhere? Bouts of premonition and unexplained magical abilities? Even her… um… strangely elastic body has ‘ghost’ written all over it.”

“But she doesn’t look anything like a-”

“Look, Rainbow, we ain’t ever seen a ghost,” Applejack pointed out. “Twilight, being, well, Twilight, probably has a whole degree for this sort of thing, and if she says Pinkie’s a ghost, that’s good enough for me.” She paused for a moment to mull over the contents of Twilight’s explanation. “Although, if you say she’s missing the other three soul bits and her body… What happened to them?”

“Forty one… Forty two… Forty three bits,” Pinkamena Diane Pie counted out the rolls of gold coins her latest customer had left out for her on the nightstand.

Her going nightly rate was two standard bank rolls, about a day’s wage for a particularly hardworking miner or perhaps the exchange for the meager haul of a lucky prospector. Each of the little cardboard wraps held twenty five coins, but of course the dirty ponies she serviced always found new limits to space the gold out so the roll at least looked full. Still, it was a respectful haul, and for that she had to be thankful.

Twenty bits, maybe fifteen if the proprietor was eager for her services, would secure her lodgings in the inn for the coming week. Ten could pay for enough food to keep her lively. That left at least thirteen bits for her leisure.

Then Pinkamena glanced out at her black tulle leggings lying across a haggard old love chair in the corner of her room. Even from this distance she could tell that the previous night’s outing left the fabric more distressed than before, and closer inspection revealed a huge tear almost halfway down it. The volume of her outward sigh could only be rivalled by her inner sigh. Make that four bits for leisure.

The pink pony glanced about blankly as she walked through the dirty streets beneath Las Pegasus. Below the famed city of sin and debauchery grew a never-ending repository of garbage, popped balloons and soggy graffiti from the gaudy parties of the ponies far above. Most made sure to be careful not to step in puddles of glitter or wading through noxious clouds of pastry rot, but as long as she wasn’t wearing her working outfit, Pinkamena didn’t seem to mind.

She breathed in deep the refuse around her, proudly wading through the muck even as the crunchy, sticky filth stuck to her coat and stained her hooves. As she sullenly made her way down through the roughly cobbled streets of Hooferville, even the most destitute of gambling addicts and beggars turned up their noses and looked away. The thought occurred to her that anyone that spotted her in this state might not be so inclined to sleep with her, but the only appropriate answer she found came out as a wry laugh. After a brief wash in one of the regular rains that washed over the shantytown, she would be as fresh as anypony ever was: a walking dumpster with a new coat of paint.

She didn’t want to bed anyone proud enough to ask for more, as naivete went down hard, and she could only manage to choke on one thing at a time.

“Merry Hearth’s Warming!” the shopkeeper called out as Pinkamena squelched in through the door.

“... Merry Hearth’s Warming, Macy,” Pinkamena glanced at the earth pony standing behind the counter. With a supply of goods essential for any vagrant worth his salt, the idiot was probably the only pony in the whole town with enough bits to pay for her fat smile.

“How d’ya like my new decorations? Bought ‘em used from some crazy filly up in Ponyville. She must throw some nice parties, because damn!” Macy gestured up at the ludicrous display of tinsel and glittery baubles that hung from every eave of her store. Lights of every shape and color emphasized the shine of the foil and the sparkles of the ornaments, and to complete the dazzling theme a syrupy sweet Hearth’s Warming tune wafted out from some tinny speaker up in the rafters.

Pinkamena raised an eyebrow and told the grinning twat that she might’ve said it was “scrum-diddly-umptious,” or perhaps even “fabulo-fantastic,” if she was two.

“Put me down gently, why don’cha,” Macy chuckled uneasily, her welcoming grin dimming a few octaves. “Can I help you find something, Miss Pie?”

“Leggings, black,” Pinkamena tapped her hooves meaningfully. “For my work.”

“Wouldn’t you like something a little more festive?” Macy tried again. “I think a nice green with a lace hem would look lovely on you-”

“Please don’t try to make this fun for me,” Pinkamena scolded her again, although her voice had lost some of its biting edge. “Black leggings. Where can I find them?”

She followed Macy’s pointed hoof to the back of the store, where the more unambiguously adult products were kept. As always, she picked out the Sassy Saddles brand and trudged with it back to the counter, where Macy waited with a bottle of rum and a few bars of soap.

“What’s this?” Pinkamena looked up as Macy processed her payment for the lingerie and slid the care package over to her.

“Just feel like they would be better off in your hooves than mine,” Macy gave Pinkamena one last wan smile as she added all the articles to a bag. “Happy Hearth’s Warming… and take care of yourself, okay?”

“Didn’t exactly plan on anything else,” Pinkamena scoffed as she slung the small pack around her shoulder. “... Thanks, Macy.”

Pinkamena spent the rest of the walk back to the inn counting the cracks in the pavement. Mercifully, the freezing cold night setting in had already gotten to hardening the puddles of muck that lined the street, so even her inexorable mope might be spared that ordeal again. Once she creaked open the door, she trundled right past the warm lobby and the many patrons enjoying their hot meals and up to the bathhouse.

It was important for her to use the bathhouse in the mid-evening, while most ponies- thus, the most married ponies- would be off eating dinner. The only other ones in the bathhouse at this particular hour were the workers getting off their evening shifts, eager to clean the mine’s tailings from their bodies and lonely ponies looking to drown their sorrows in a nice, hot soak. Cleaning herself as she made the rounds then served a dual purpose, allowing her to scope out her potential clients, and of course, them her as well.

“Okay,” Pinkamena told herself in her room’s mirror, turning around to inspect her slender flanks and raising one of her legs experimentally. Her new leggings covered most of her legs up to her high thighs in translucent black fabric, with little flowery patterns running down to just above her ankles, where they melted away into an elastic cuff securing the piece just above her hoof. “Not great, but okay.”

Just before she could work up the motivation to make her way downstairs to revel in the Hearth’s Warming surge of lonely bachelors, Pinkamena heard Macy’s bottle of whiskey calling her name. The cheap glass and scruffy label immediately told her that while it wasn’t exactly Apple Acre Brandy, it was at least a cut above the dodgy moonshine sold on Hooferville street corners out of small wooden casks and mugs.

“Eh, alright,” she popped the cork off in her mouth and considered the tipple in her hooves. “Couldn’t hurt.”

“Ah, Las Pegasus,” Rarity hummed as she breathed in the glimmering lights and music of the Game City. “So glad to be searching here of all places.”

While not as known for its noble pursuit of fashion as, say, Manehattan, Las Pegasus certainly held its share of adventurous ponies to take cues from, as well as misadventures to learn from. But failing the constant drone of work, Rarity would enjoy herself here, taking the time to spend a small fortune on an enjoyable night at the casino, or on a sightseeing jaunt in the surrounding sky. She had to admit she loved her job, of course, her life’s work and purpose, but there was a simple joy in indulging her every want from moment to moment that fame and fortune could never quite replace.

Roaming the city in the thrall of the holidays made the experience all the more enjoyable. Everything from the fine dining, to the gambling antes and hotel rooms, was generously discounted as a gift to the customers that wished to spend the holidays up there- hopefully bringing their families up for a good time. As everypony walked to and fro from gambling hall to gambling hall, with full bellies and big smiles, the effervescent energy leaked into the soul and brought a grin to one’s own face as well.

“Sorry to burst yer bubble, Rares, but Pinkie’s body ain’t up here,” Applejack smugly chuckled. “We’re going down to Hooferville!”

She pumped her hoof up in the air, bobbing her head in a mock celebration. In truth, she didn’t want to go to Hooferville- nobody ever did- but the chance to watch Rarity’s serene grin melt off her face into a trollish, ugly scowl around her hooves made it more than worth it to get her work boots a little dirty. Applejack danced a little jig around her as Rarity began to turn green, twirling her hat around like she had just finished the apple harvest.

“Yeehaw!” she cheered. “Going to Hooferville! Best dive town ever!”

“Noooooo…” Rarity moaned. “Just let a foolish pony believe she can stay up here in the nice place. Perhaps I could, you know, just in case Pinkie’s… um, ‘sense…’ turns out to be wrong and she is, in fact, up here?”

Conveniently, the different parts of the Animus are all bound to the body and each other by unbreakable magical tethers that link them together. No matter where they are in the world, the four reflections of the soul can sense each others’ presence as naturally as a creature looking down and seeing its four hooves in various places. Unfortunately, this insight does not quite extend to the being constituted by the soul.

“Sorry, Rarity!” Pinkie Pie bounced around in a circle. “There’s no doubt that ‘ole Miss Pinkamena’s down there somewhere down in a…” She gestured in a vaguely downward motion. “That wayish way.”

Rarity dramatically shook her head and stalked off to prepare for the ordeal ahead of her.

“Ahem. Magical question here,” Rainbow Dash cleared her throat. “So, this Pinkamena we’re about to see… She’s like another version of you?”

“Not really,” Twilight answered now. “Think of Pinkie Pie as a missing piece of Pinkamena. She’s her Hedon, remember? ‘The happy.’ The person we are about to meet is everything besides that.”

“You mean to tell me that poor girl has lived all this time devoid of all happiness?” Rarity butted in. “That sounds… well, barbaric doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

“I can’t imagine what that must be like,” Twilight said. “We have to help her.”

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie began to giggle. She laughed merrily as she bounced and tumbled around her friends as if this was something to laugh about.

“Help her!” she twittered. “That’s a good one, Twi-Twi!”

“I was being serious!” the lavender alicorn cocked her head in alarm.

“Oh, Twilight, she’s not a very ‘helpy’ kind of pony,” Pinkie giggled. “I’m sure it would be fun to look at her for a little while, but believe me, she’s a really downy dumps downer. I think it’d be much more fun to just go home, or, hear me out, enjoy the festivities up here!”

Pinkie gestured happily at the enormous green spindles of green silk that draped down from one of the casino’s walls. All dispersed across the fabric were little red lights that blinked in fun reindeer and gift box patterns. A few moments later, when no response seemed to be forthcoming, Pinke turned around, sighing in annoyance as she watched Twilight’s friends moving toward the express escalator that would take them down to the shantytown below.

“Oh god, what is this place?” Rarity groaned. Even inside the protective barrier of a pony-shaped hazmat suit, the piles of refuse and detritus that lined the street, and indeed, what some of the ramshackle houses seemed to be built out of made her want to gag. “Perhaps Pinkie was right. Maybe we should just go back up and take a load off at the slots.”

“Stick a sock in it, Rarity,” Applejack scolded. “We haven’t even been outside for two minutes- and besides, it won’t be much longer. We do know where we’re going, right?”

She turned expectantly to Pinkie Pie, who turned to Twilight, asking the unspoken question. Twilight impatiently flapped her wings at her as if to tell her to get on with it, and with a huff, Pinkie directed them to the town’s only inn.

On the whole the inn was actually quite nice, paid for and maintained by not only the regular customers who came for a hot meal each night, but also the middling tourists who could afford a stint at the Las Pegasus slots but not quite a stay in their hotels. “Nice,” by Hooferville standards, that is, which meant that it sported the minimum of a solid wooden foundation, hot running water, and a steady enough supply of candles to actually be called an inn. Cracks in the windows and wear in the roof told Rarity’s discerning eye that it could be prone to rain damage and wind, a problem when living under a literal giant cloud.

By now, night had fallen, and the only remaining patrons remaining in the dining hall were those passed out drunks too heavy for the serving staff to drag out from their chairs. Twilight’s friends watched in slight bemusement as they applied their standard solution in such matters: The staff handcuffed them to the bolted-down tableposts so they couldn’t steal anything if they woke in the middle of the night, and then the staff went upstairs and went the hell to bed.

“Celestia, I can’t believe a pony can live in a place like this,” Applejack shook her head as they followed the staff up to the rooms.

It was strange to hear Pinkie’s voice coming from a direction other than, well, Pinkie, although that only went as far as Pinkamena’s voice could be described as Pinkie’s voice. Pinkie’s voice hardly ever left giggle pitch, a totally unhooked sense of worry that was entirely betrayed by the keening moan that was Pinkamena, crying and sobbing through the thin doors and walls of the inn. Twilight easily found the door the sound was coming from, and with a quiet lance of magic, the bar of the interior lock snapped in half and the doorknob moved freely.

“Twilight,” Pinkie placed her hoof on her friend’s shoulder, her face unusually grim. “I don’t want you to open that door.”

Twilight hesitated before she reached for the latch. The shadow of uncertain respect passed over her face and she quietly acknowledged Pinkie. “What do you want me to do, then?”

“I want you to watch as I open the door,” Rarity cut in as she flipped the latch open and pushed the door free.

Immediately, the strong smell of spilled alcohol washed out of the room and struck them all like a wave. Rarity’s respirator mask spared her the caustic sensation in her nose, but she could sympathize at the sight of her friends groaning and waving at the vapors. Macy’s jug of whiskey rolled out from behind the bed, and Pinkamena chased the mostly-empty bottle around on shaky hooves, hardly coherent in her vision through her tears. Even when she caught up to the pesky rolling object, her clumsy forehooves failed to gain purchase on the glass and she dropped it down to roll away again.

“Let me help you, dearie,” Rarity removed her hazmat suit so she could grip the bottle herself and direct into Pinkamena’s forelegs.

“T-thank you,” Pinkamena gasped, registering her visitors’ presence for the first time. Drunkenly, she looked up into Rarity’s kind eyes and observed her flawlessly curled mane and gleaming white coat. “... Is you an angel? Are it my time?”

“Quite the compliment,” Rarity smiled. “But no, I’m afraid not. Not yet.”

“Darn,” Pinkamena took a huge draught of the bottle and lowered it to the ground again, significantly closer to empty than it was before. “I wish it was.”

“Well,” the gears in her brain continued turning over the coming seconds, and she went on: “Well, if all… youse… not angels, what in Princess Celestia’s fat ass are you doing in my room?”

“We’ve brought someone to see you,” Twilight called out, dragging Pinkie Pie by the mane into the room. Once they were inside, she barred the door with a ward spell and braced it with a chair. “More accurately, we’ve brought you to see you. To help you.”

“Me see me?” Pinkamena chortled woozily. “I think you need to lie down. If you’ve drunk so much you’re seeing double-” She stopped dead in her tracks as she saw Pinkie Pie trot out from behind Twilight and blast her with the deepest frown to end all frowns. “Me has drunk so much me’re seeing double,” she croaked before collapsing face first into the splintery floorboards.

“Yeah, I’d like that to be true too,” Pinkie sneered at herself. “But no. It’s me. I’m back. Back again. With you.”

“Is it actually you?” Pinkamena rolled over and shakily rolled herself over onto her hooves. Drunken rage spawned in her in an instant and furiously she lunged at Pinkie Pie. “Why the hell are you here?!”

Of course, drunk as she was, Pinkamena hardly made it anywhere near Pinkie and instead crashed down to a stop on the wooden floorboards. That didn’t stop her from trying to nip at Pinkie’s ankles, though, and Pinkie was just about to send her doppelganger’s head through the floor with a stomp when Applejack stepped in between them and held them apart.

“Alright!” she hollered. “So clearly we have a conflict here. Care to explain?”

Purely on the theoretical basis of the soul, Twilight knew something like this would probably happen, and as always she had come prepared. Because of their opposing roles in the battle for a creature’s mind, the Custos and the Hedon bitterly cursed each other whenever they found the chance, manifesting in feelings of confusion and depressed nostalgia. It was only natural that separated entirely- granted, a far more unusual circumstance- that would stay constant. To safeguard against this end, she had prepared an exorcist’s stone to enforce her will on either spirit, although as the moment of need drew closer, she did wonder what that could look like.

She watched warily as Pinkamena started to narrate their story, interrupted every few sentences with shrill corrections from Pinkie. Over the course of a few minutes, she moved through her dull gray infancy to a colorless childhood in the rock farms, getting at last to the Sonic Rainboom from which they all received their Cutie Marks. She and Pinkie shared every detail of that hopeful day, from the kind breeze that wafted through the air, and the exact songs of the birds as they fluttered by. The fresh smell of drizzled-on earth as the great flash of rainbow color took to the sky and illuminated it in all the manner that a little rock filly had never seen before, and never believed could exist. She watched the Rainboom shimmer as it washed across the sky, eyes wide with the dazzling beauty.

“Even though it only lasted a few seconds before fading away,” Pinkamena scoffed. “This ridiculous feeling rose up in me, this certainty that I could see more- In fact, that I could make more of these wonderful things that made ponies happy.”

Pinkie gave a small nod as the two of them locked eyes. Seemingly that was the only statement of Pinkamena’s she agreed with so far.

“And I thought that was ridiculous!” Pinkamena spat in Pinkie’s face. “What kind of naive child could ever think that? I wanted it gone, so I reached down into my soul and I told it to fuck off-”

“Nope!” Pinkie Pie screamed. “Nope, nope, nope! I’m the one that left you, you sad sack sorry excuse for a sad little pony! You were miserable! You wanted to be miserable! We had the mother of all chances to be happy, and you wanted to pass it up!”

“Maybe I just didn’t want to be a grinning twat like you!” Pinkamena stamped her foot.

“And I,” Pinkie Pie roared. “I would rather die before I become like you!”

Pinkamena reared up and delivered a rousing punch into Pinkie’s face, or she would have if, at the moment of the blow’s connection, her flying hooves phased through Pinkie’s body in a haze of glowing blue light. Now practically intersected with one another, Pinkie tried her luck with a bite on Pinkamena’s muzzle. This too was equally ineffective. At an impasse, both of them looked out at the stunned ponies watching them for help in beating up the other.

“You can’t hurt each other,” Twilight explained. “As much as you want to, you can’t because you’re the same person. Just… er… different parts of the same person.”

“I am not her,” Both Pinks emphasized at the same time.

“No, you aren’t,” Twilight told them. “But together, you form the real Pinkamena. The one who understands both how to make her way in a world that is sometimes unhappy, and how to be happy herself.”

“Being happy is just a waste of time,” Pinkamena sighed. “There’s always something sad right around the corner waiting for you.”

“And then that sadness ends, and you’ll be happy again,” Twilight smiled at her. “You can’t keep going on like this.”

She gestured to Pinkamena’s alcohol soaked coat and bleary, tear-filled eyes.

“I mean,” the purple alicorn went on. “This kinda sucks.”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” she muttered after a short pause. “Surely you’re not going to ask Pinkie to merge back into me.”

“I mean…” Twilight glanced back at Pinkie.

“No,” she shook her head. “Do you even know what that means?”

“‘Course I do,” Twilight shrugged. “It’s as simple as slotting your piece of Pinkamena’s Animus back with all the rest… Oh.”

“It is kind of ironic,” Pinkie Pie laughed. “The Princess of Friendship not understanding that one of the importantest cornerstones of being a good friend is not cramming your other good friends into places they don’t want to be.”

As her other friends began to murmur behind her, Twilight realized the shifting foundations underneath her positions, not to mention her own misgivings, and she took a step back to regroup herself.

There was no danger ascribed to the procedure. Not only would Pinkie Pie’s memories be distributed across the animus, keeping them intact, she would remain as coherent of a being as she was, just now sequestered with three others. This meant that, cruel as it would be to deprive Pinkamena of happiness a second time, the process could be undone. However if it were done successfully and stayed done, the being known as Pinkie Pie would be merged with the one called Pinkamena, creating someone who was a bit like both, and decidedly not either. And that meant their friend they all knew would be gone.

She then planned to lay out the argument for merging the two, an ethical examination regarding the rights of all beings to feel joy and to retain all aspects of their original soul throughout their lives. The natural counterargument was of course the question of whether they could enforce such a change on Pinkie, their friend, fractured spirit or not, changing her in an emphatic and not necessarily happy way. While her friends weren’t exactly fierce debaters, she expected them to be tied up arguing for quite some time.

That left only Pinkie and Pinkamena in the center of the room to ponder amongst themselves.

“What do you think she’ll do?” Pinkamena asked.

“Twilight’s a good friend,” Pinkie responded. “I know she’ll do the right thing.”

“I think she will,” Pinkamena shot back. “... You know, she’s pretty smart. Bringing along an exorcist’s stone was a nice touch.”

“You’re not the one she might use it on,” Pinkie rolled her eyes. “But yeah. She’s a regular old smarty pants. I’m lucky to have her as a friend.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t you think?”

“Well, to be honest, Pinkie,” Pinkamena shrugged. “I don’t handle ‘friends’ all that well. Friendly business partners, sure, but I wouldn’t know what to do with just ‘friends.’ Missing that part of me, remember?”

“Right! Um, sorry,” Not even Pinkie could ignore the awkwardness. She wanted so badly to leave it there, but she had spent far too long around Twilight for that. “You… you ever think about getting it back?”

“All the time,” Pinkamena admitted. “Sometimes I really, really want to try being happy again. It just seems so hard sometimes, and, well, I’m not sure I could do the whole thing justice.”

“It’s easier when you have friends there to help you,” Pinkie Pie reassured her. “Real friends who will drag you right over the finish line when you fall down. You just have to be the one to get up and start trying to begin with.”

“Oh, Celestia, that does sound nice,” Pinkamena cracked a smile for the first time in her life. “Any advice on where I can find some?”

“You already have some, silly! Right behind you!”

Pinkamena turned to face Twilight and the rest of her friends in their awkward rugby scrum of a meeting. Applejack, somehow she knew, was the orange one with the rakish cowboy hat and the poor vocabulary. Rarity had given her her precious whiskey what seemed like a lifetime ago, and Rainbow Dash was the loud one who still didn’t understand what was happening. Somewhere hiding behind everypony would be Fluttershy, the small yellow marshmallow, and of course she already knew Twilight. But how did she know?

“Hey, where’s Pinkie?” Twilight noticed Pinkamena’s curious stare and scanned the room, noticeably short one pony. “Dang it…”

She conjured the exorcist’s stone and broadcast a recall spell, so that Pinkie, wherever she was running, would be caught in the net and drawn back to the source. Six little orbs of red magic bubbled out of the garnet amulet and hovered momentarily before returning to their summoner in apparent confusion.

“No targets?” Twilight furrowed her brow. “There’s no way she could get out of range that quickly! Try again!”

The red orbs returned to their task with a vengeance, supported by a dozen more newly summoned clones. Empowered to find results, they frantically buzzed out the window and out onto the street. Only one seemed to remain, in an apparent malfunction, hovering curiously around Pinkamena.

“Hey there, little guy,” she followed the little scarlet mote as it buzzed around her head. “Ow!” She giggled as a little crackle of lightning shot out of the orb and zapped her nose. “Well, that’s not very nice!”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed as she watched the one orb bounce about her like a fly around a lamp.

“Unless,” she murmured, reaching out to touch Pinkamena. “Pinkie?”

“I think I am,” Pinkamena nodded slowly. “Or she is?” She laughed at the strangeness of the question. “We are? Who knows!”

“You came together on your own,” Twilight let out a gasp of disbelief. She reached out to touch her, searching for a sign of her friend that she knew to be inside. There was some regret that Pinkie seemed to opt out of a proper send-off, but she figured that not waiting for permission was undeniably a spontaneously Pinkie thing to do. That amusement did manage to bring a small smile to Twilight’s face.

“I want to be happy,” Pinkamena smiled up at her. “I wanted to try with every piece of myself, even the parts that…” Tears welled up her eyes. “Even the parts that can get hurt. And I think Pinkie liked that.”

“And we are going to help you,” Twilight wrapped her in a big hug. “I swear on my life, we are going to help you be the happiest, laughiest, most energetic party pony in the world again. Okay?”

“Okay!” Pinkamena almost choked on her laugh and the wonderful, warm hug that surrounded her. “Guys, I think I love being happy.”

“Yay!” Twilight’s other friends all barreled into the group hug like a tidal wave of love. Rainbow Dash was the first to tackle in, followed closely by Applejack’s crushing belly flop of a hug. Fluttershy was next, careful not to get smashed by the incredible pony tangle, and finally Rarity came in last to give her own dignified addition to the display.

Then the hotel staff finally kicked down the door. Their efforts over almost the last hour finally bore fruit as the chair slid down from the doorknob and the ward spell bent past its breaking point and shattered. Four muscular earth pony bouncers went over to the colorful pony dogpile in the middle of the room and heaved them up and out of the room.

“I don’t care if you’re having an emotional breakdown or what,” one of the serving staff moaned after them. “Some of us are trying to sleep!”

So said, the bouncers dragged Pinkamena and her friends down the stairs, opened the inn’s windows, and hurled them one by one out onto the street.

“And stay out!” somepony hollered before the window shut behind them.

They spent a few moments convalescing in the muck, but it didn’t take long for somepony to find humor in the situation.

“Were we really that loud?” Rainbow Dash was the first one to start laughing.

“Gosh, everypony in the whole inn must’ve heard us…” Fluttershy blushed and hid a grin behind her wings.

“It’s all coming back to me now,” Pinkamena shook her head in disbelief as an immensely entertained grin spread across her face. “Celestia, this is what every day is like with you ponies.”

They all shared a good laugh at that.

“Well, that was awful,” Rarity finally rose from the ground, grimacing at the unidentified green street-slime now clinging to her coat. “I don’t suppose it’s too late to go back up to Las Pegasus and enjoy what’s left of their Hearth’s Warming promotion? My treat.”

“Wow, you guys are gamblers, too?” Pinkamena pranced happily in place, sending Rarity spinning back into the muck with a cry of disgust. “This is going to be great! I love you guys!”