And A Good Time Was Had By All
Pinkie spun so fast that she forgot which way was up and which way was down. Fortunately, a nearby punch bowl was there to catch her. Her dance partner Rarity screeched and dodged out of the way of the ensuing tidal wave of fruity beverage, which Spike valiantly flung himself in front of to catch with his mouth. Everypony (and dragon) laughed and went back to swingin' it while Pinkie shook herself off and contemplated inventing a future line of sugar-based contact lenses.
It was a great party. In fact, looking around at all the ponies having fun playing games, gorging themselves on snacks or just bein' jiggy widdit, she had to say it was possibly her best party yet. And her standards were exacting. There were more and more original treats than ever before, from the teeny weeny walnut brittle crunches to the great big honeyed twice-sugar-rolled grape bunches, and everypony was managing to find just the right treat to fit their mouths. The dance floor was full of bodies enslaved to the almighty gods Beat and Rhythm, with Derpy in particular throwing out some radical breakdancing moves that were maybe just a little dangerous to anypony who got too close. Ponies who wanted their fun a lil less exhausting were busy with a special five-way three dee combination board game involving Monopony, Twister, chess, Slip'n Slide and Clue that Pinkie had invented just for the occasion so that ponies of all ages could contribute in a super sweet team effort where everypony felt like they won even if they didn't. Plenty of friends were paired off and just talking, too, and that was fine – they all looked like they were having just as much fun talking as everypony else was with the games and the munchies, if the volume of laughter was anything to go by.
Yep yep yep, she was all ready to bask in the sweet, sweet diabetes-causing success of a party accomplished unto perfection. Pinkie swayed her head with the music, letting her eyes drift shut, thinking that there was no way that the pony this was for could be anything less than super duper happy.
The pony... this was for.
Something tingly and cold crept up her spine, and at first she mistook it for a Pinkie Sense tingle, but no, it was just a regular tingle. She waited and waited and it faded, but the feeling of offness didn't go away with it.
Huh.
She couldn't remember who or what this party was for.
How silly was that?!
Pinkie started to giggle spontaneously, cramming her hoof into her mouth, and nopony looked at her weird because they were used to her doing that (FINALLY, only took 'em a few years!). All the work, all the fun, all the ponies. It was truly the pinnacle of perfect partification, and she couldn't even remember what'd prompted it all, the crumb on the crumbcake, the candle on the birthday cake, the, the, whatever, she wasn't a metaphor generating pony, she was a party generating pony!
Come on Pinkie, think! What did Twilight say to do when stuff like this happens? Walk your brain back through the steps. So that was what Pinkie did, rewinding her mind carefully, going through each and every little and not so little action required to get to the middle of this awesome party and the beginning and setting it up and planning to set it up. She counted out individual sprinkles poured onto cupcakes and sorted them by color. She transcended the physical plane and merged with a new one that was composed entirely of memories of cheesy puns and cheese fondue. She sorted out the memories of how every single one of her friends (and they were all her friends, all two hundred and twenty-seven party guests, including that one greaser pony who was too cool to admit he had friends), how they'd gotten here, when they'd gotten here, what they'd done up to this point and were doing now.
And in her memories and in the present alike, everypony was full of happiness.
But still, that blank spot in her mind remained, as though somepony had come along with an eraser and applied it just so gently to the exact wrinkle of brain that included the party's motivation.
It didn't bother her too much, because she figured that she'd remember eventually. So Pinkie settled back with Twilight to debate the comedic expertise required in the fine art of pie throwing – Twilight was a huge proponent of the contre-auguste in contemporary farces – while trading off her dance partner with Spike, who did his best to blush his cute widdle dwagon face off. While they exchanged opinions on whether coconut flakes had any place in a proper cream pie and whether makeup enhanced or detracted from the whole funniness experience, a second part of Pinkie's brain was running on its own train ride, choo chooing through Partyopia towards Why-Are-We-Heresville. She talked until she ran out of smart-sounding things to say and just started making faces at Twilight, who snickered and reciprocated, and still her brain couldn't come up with the answer.
Come on, dumb brain! Stop being silly. This wasn't funny anymore. Actually, it'd never been funny, but now it was really really really not funny. She was starting to get a little worried.
She truly couldn't remember what this party was about.
Pinkie almost slipped up and let a little frown out, she was so bothered by it, but she saw Twilight looking at her with those big smart bookworm eyes and quickly turned it back into a smile before the corners of her mouth could descend that fatal sliver of a sliver of a sliver of a centimeter from neutral below to frowny sad territory. Then she excused herself to go check on the ponies outside. They hadn't spilled out because the inside was too crammed – no, she had planned way better than that. They had spilled out because they'd just plain wanted to enjoy the nice warm evening air while sipping fall cinnamon-rhubarb drinks that were perfectly complementary to the season, complete with orange maple sugar pointed leaves decorating the tops like the cherries in adult drinks. Separate from the bulk of the party but still definitely part of it. Pinkie joined them, and everypony was, of course, having a blast. Outdoors was quieter, given over mostly to talky sorts of fun like telling ghost stories (Lyra had lightened up her face with a creeeepy neon green horn glow), spin the bottle and a few ponies making out behind trees.
It being her duty, as party mistress, to make sure that everypony was partying roughly the same kind of party as everypony else and not some weird special adults only party, she bounced over to one particularly enthusiastic couple and leeeaaaaaned in. Five smooches, one smack and one naughty swat later, the mare of the couple noticed her and jumped back with a squeak.
“Keep it above the neck in public, you two crazy lovebirds!” Pinkie sang out with a grin, nudging the stallion half of the couple with an elbow.
She didn't bother to stay to see if they'd actually be polite or not – she knew they would be. Sometimes ponies just got carried away with all the fun they were having, and the fun wave swept away all thoughts about whether the other ponies around them were having fun or not. But she was here, a beacony lighthouse of merryfulness, to remind them to be respectful and have fun, not just one or the other.
Yep, taking care of a party was a lot like taking care of a baby. Only it didn't make her cry and covering herself in flour only helped half as much. She was a good party caretaker, wasn't she? But what kind of parent would forget their own baby's name? Pinkie imagined the Cakes forgetting Pound and calling him 'Hey you' for the rest of their lives, and she had to steel her spine to hold back a shiver.
This was horrible.
Why couldn't she just remember?
Don't think about it, Pinkie. The harder you think the harder your brain will fight back. Relax and let the memories flow like batter into oiled cupcake pans. Yeeeees.
She leaned against the wooden patio railing, eyes focused on the dance of globe lantern lights. They were orange, red, yellow. Fall colors, dying leaf colors. She'd made sure of that. That should have given her a hint as to what this all was about, but no. She'd done that trick before, she'd done everything before, maybe not all at once like this or with quite the same details, but it was all similar to other parties in rough strokes. Like how paintings looked alike if she let her eyes blur and looked at just the color blobs (an art critiquing technique she'd picked up from Derpy, who was quite a connoisseur of Canterlot fancy creative stuff). Her breathing slowed, she let the warm air and the night soothe her while ponies laughed and talked in the background.
It wasn't like she was at a party. It was like she was at the party. She felt like she could, without trying too hard, forget what day it was or year it was and mix this party up with a million other parties she'd had before. She didn't number her parties, although Twilight had suggested it, and now she was regretting that. Maybe if she'd numbered them, put them down in a big ol' checklist, she would feel more... solid.
Parties were fun because it made her friends happy, of course. She knew they were happy right now, she heard them being happy, and yet she wasn't. What a head scritchity scratchity puzzle. Why did their happiness stop making her happy when she just couldn't remember why she'd tried to make them happy in the first place? Shouldn't somepony come tell her, shouldn't whoever the party was for thank her? Or maybe they already did and she'd missed it or it had blurred in with countless other thanks she'd received through this night, this week, this life.
Pinkie exhaled and closed her eyes, letting her forehead bump into the wood, feeling the distinct lack of splinters because she'd made sure it'd been nice and smooth before the party had ever started. She had planned everything down to the very last detail. For a friend. For something that was important to that friend. But she didn't know what or why or who.
Did that make all the happiness... not matter?
Only a second with her head down, feeling tired as Twilight after an all-night study session without enough tea or coffee, and then Pinkie's partying instincts kicked in. She couldn't be all mopey or other ponies would notice. And then they might get sad. Which would ruin the party. The party was important, all the more because she didn't know why, she had to respect it. To that end, she flicked her head back up fast enough to send her mane whip-snapping behind her and put on her bestest, biggestest grin before trotting back inside.
She didn't mean to be ruin the party. She was sorry. It wouldn't happen again, so the night had to keep on being fun for everypony. It had to.
“Whoooo's ready to play Biscotti Jengaaaa?” she called out, and wrangled in Medley, Twist, Daisy and Filthy Rich, along with three times that many interested audience members (half of which were betting donuts on the outcome).
Yes, things were back on track. Everyone laughed at her jokes and eyebrow waggles and how she moved the biscotti tower pieces with her nose and her tail and her butt and everything else that wasn't her hooves. Everypony was having a great time. She looked around again and again to confirm it, but she didn't have to. She could hear it. In the whole place, nopony was unhappy. Nopony was sad. Everypony was full of joy and their hearts were singing with smiles while their tummies snuggled up with food.
There was nothing wrong with this party.
Except her.
Why didn't they notice?
She started to wonder, after she forgot to lose Biscotti Jenga on purpose and had to go a second round and rig it against herself so Daisy would smile even more than she already was smiling, if they were just humoring her. Did they really know and were they just pretending because everypony knew how craaaaaaaaazy Pinkie Pie got when she wasn't happy?
No, they were good friends, they wouldn't do that to her! She was a good party host, she respected the spirit of the party and had adhered to all its sacred rituals, especially the ones she'd made up herself! She wasn't a bad party pony. She was a good party pony because this was a good party and the proof was in the polenta or however that saying went.
Still, their eyes seemed to crawl on her, glaring like laser beams that pierced her skin and steamed her heart into a shriveled dry little thing. Ponies often said she acted like a little filly, but Pinkie had never felt like a little filly so much as she did now.
I'm sorry! I didn't mean to let you all down. Please forgive me! I'll do better next time, I swear! I'll write it down like Twilight does! I'LL WRITE IT DOWN AND MAKE SPIKE MAIL A TRIPLICATE TO THE PRINCESSES!
They couldn't hear her pleading because Pinkie was careful to keep it inside her head where it couldn't make them sad. Her outside was still full of happy, and that was the part of her they were looking at. She was just imagining the whispers, the raised eyebrows, the nudges and sidelong glances, right? Everypony was happy. They had to be. She'd worked so hard, they had to be.
Into her brain crept the idea of a party without happiness. An anti-party, an unparty. Everypony was sad, but they had to pretend to be happy because everypony else was expecting everypony else to be happy and nopony wanted to ruin it for everypony else. It was utter distilled misery like AJ's cider was apple in a mug, the worst thing ever, worse than Discord and Nightmare Moon and Chrysalis fused into Discord Chrysa-Moon, and ponies couldn't even cry and hug each other because they couldn't admit to being sad. Even though on the outside, it looked happy, didn't it? It looked so very happy. A very lazy or stupid or bad pony might not even be able to tell the difference between a party that wasn't a party and a real party, right?
Pinkie licked her lips clean of almond slivers from cleaning up after Biscotti Jenga and moved on to cleaning up a little spill.
“Oh, no, Pinkie, it was my cup, I'll get it!”
No, she would get it.
She insisted.
Ponies who accidentally spill their drinks on the carpet should just go have fun – but be careful with that next drink, okey dokey?
“...arentcha gonna say lokie?”
Lokie. Yes, the lokie was important.
Pinkie remembered exactly why the lokie was important, she remembered when she'd figured out the rhythm was absolutely necessary to instill the ideal solemnity-silliness paradox into words of friendship (on her tenth birthday), but she couldn't remember why she'd thrown this party. She was a traitor to a friend, had let those bonds of happiness stretch just a little too thin, and she didn't even know which one she'd betrayed.
The party was feeling a bit too loud to her ears, now, as she scrubbed at the carpet with a cloth (the punch was non-stainy, it was okay). This was unusual and very much a mark of things being seriously wrong with her, she figured, because as long as Pinkie had lived, she had never before considered there being such a thing as a 'too loud.'
When other ponies said to turn it down, she turned it down, but she never really got why they asked. Not till now. Now that every noise was wailing and screaming and babbling in her ears, pins in her brain, nails scraping at her very soul, accusing her. It was the loud, desperate jabber of unhappy ponies trapped in a fake happiness they couldn't be free of. Or was that just her? Or was she even pretending anymore?
Pinkie tried to douse her brain with a big gulp of punch, and the sugar did nothing for her. It was simply a flavor, a feeling of wetness, going from her mouth to throat to tummy, all felt and then ignored. Meaningless. The party was still here, but the spirit of the party had checked out.
Help me, she wanted to ask Applejack, mid-hoedown. Could Kicks McGee buck some sense into her, jog her memory with a nice sharp kick? Or... wait. She had a better idea. A great idea.
She needed another sonic rainboom.
After downing five cans of energy drinks, Rainbow Dash was more than happy to oblige, and she lit up the night sky like something amazing and magical and eternal. It was the same blast of colors that had transformed Pinkie's entire life into one full of confetti and streamers and cakes, the thing that had plugged her in to her true self, the heart of joy, the smiles shared between loved ones.
Pinkie watched those colors fly by again, and felt absolutely nothing at it. Of course, she still screamed and jumped in the air and did a crowdsurf while waving at Dashie frantically, because that was just plain expected of her, but that essential emptiness in her remained unchanged. Only a few minutes and several energy drinks afterward was she overcome with a slow dread and exhaustion at how total her failure was.
What was on the outside was not what was on the inside. She couldn't remember, therefore whatever this party was about wasn't important to her, and since it was important to the pony she'd thrown it for, that pony clearly wasn't important to her either. Which made her a bad friend, a bad party pony, a bad everything. It was like having the entire alphabet except for the letter A.
Pinkie watched a circle of ponies try to keep a single balloon up in the air with nothing but their breaths, their giggling faces, their pursed lips, the delicate float of the balloon like a butterfly.
She had failed them all and she wanted to just disappear.
Only one other time in her life had Pinkie experienced such a focused, relentless grief that she had been completely unable to share anyone. Of course she couldn't share it. They'd laugh at her. They'd all laugh, say she was being stupid, that she was stupid. Stupid Pinkie, why cry over something so foalish? Nopony cares!
Or maybe they'd just admit that the party was a great big failure and all go home.
The last time she had gone through something like this, she had made her own party with her own friends. Would that work this time? Could she just go back to Sugarcube Corner and hide in her room? Maybe say she had a tummy ache, that was believable. And Sir Lintsalot and Madame Le Flour wouldn't judge her, oh no, they would understand, they always did, nopony could remember everything all the time, and they knew how to be quiet, QUIET, WHY WAS EVERYPONY TALKING SO LOUD....
“Are you enjoying the party, Pinkie Pie?”
Pinkie Pie looked over from her spontaneous cartwheeling to flash Princess Celestia a great big smile. She'd forgotten the Princess was here. Make that two big things she'd forgotten, then, but at least the Princess wouldn't mind.
“Totally, Princess! I can't think of anything I could possibly do to make this party better except maybe cram five or six more parties inside of it!”
Good thing she wasn't the bearer of that pesky 'honesty' element. Across the room, Applejack sneezed explosively, spraying punch and ice cubes over her unamused brother. Pinkie hoofsprung over a low-flying pegasus to land expertly on one hoof right in front of the Princess, bowed with a ballerina's elegance, and then promptly fell over. Because you had to contrast these things, like chocolate and strawberries, or Rarity and everypony else in Ponyville who wasn't Rarity.
“Oh my, are you alright? Let me help you up.”
Pinkie made sure to have her smile back on by the time the Princess's magic glow faded and she was upright again. “Toootally, no biggie. I did it on purpose,” she stage-whispered, causing the Princess to smile behind a hoof.
“I thought that might have been the case, but even the best actors can get so into their roles that they hurt themselves. Such is suffering of the artist, I suppose.”
Pinkie stared at the Princess without blinking for just a little bit longer than was probably polite.
“So,” Pinkie said a bit too loudly, “are you enjoying the party?”
“Very much,” Princess Celestia replied easily, noting a stray passing balloon and bumping it into the air with a delicate nudge of her muzzle. “You do a great job helping everypony to unwind, Pinkie. I haven't seen my faithful student dance like that in... well, ever, actually.” She chuckled.
Their gazes both went over to where Twilight had carved out a spot for herself on the dance floor.
“...it's actually a little horrifying,” the Princess murmured after a little bit.
“Yyyup,” said a passing Big Mac with a fruit bowl on his head and a lampshade on his hindquarters. Pinkie grabbed a banana from the bowl and started eating it distractedly.
“Pinkie, are you sure you're quite alright?”
Frantic on the inside, all smiles on the outside, Pinkie ran over a mental checklist (Twilight woulda been so proud). Hair problems? Nope, hair was still poofy by sheer force of party time willpower. Was her smile a centimeter off? No, it felt perfect, with just the right amount of teethiness. Had she done something earlier to tip off the Princess?! No, she'd been perfectly happy-looking, she was sure of it, how could the Princess possibly know?! The party... it would be all ruined now....
“I'm as okey dokey lokie as an artichokie, Princess! Why?”
“Well, it's just that most ponies like to peel a banana before they eat it, that's all.”
Pinkie blinked and blushed. “Oh. I thought that naner was a lil chewy.” She chucked the half-eaten banana over her shoulder, blindly aiming for a trash bin, but judging by the enraged feline squawk, she'd missed. “Sorry Opalescence!” she called out, wincing.
They went quiet again. Around them, the party continued, but for the two of them there was just this bubble of quiet. It wasn't a bad quiet. It was warm. And wavy, on account of the magical flowing mane and all. Pinkie tried to soak it in and get some of that sunshiny goodness into her brain, but if a sonic rainboom couldn't do it, even the Princess couldn't.
Pinkie licked her lips.
“Have you ever forgotten something really important, Princess?”
The Princess lifted her chin ever so slightly and let her eyelids drift to half mast. There was just maybe the tiniest hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth, like the tiny bit of paparika that Pinkie liked to put on oatmeal to make it look pretty.
“Pinkie Pie, I am over a thousand years old. I have forgotten more important things than you will ever know in your entire life. A mind is a wonderful, even miraculous thing, but it can only hold so much. When it becomes full, it must spill. It has much in common with our hearts that way.”
They shared a soft chuckle, but it was wrong, all wrong. Pinkie wasn't supposed to be quiet. The whole thing was blown wide open. She should just throw herself on her knees and beg forgiveness for messing up the party, but the Princess was still smiling, and Pinkie wanted so, so much to believe it was a real smile and not a fakey one.
“I'm not sure... why I'm here,” Pinkie admitted to the Princess, ashamed, twisting her hooves together till the frogs ached.
“Oh dear.” Princess Celestia eyed the ceiling in momentary contemplation. “I think that's one of those questions we can only answer for ourselves, Pinkie.” Her eyes went back down. “Of course, you've done so much for us. You don't have to stay if you don't feel like partying. Nopony will judge you if you'd like to retire-”
“Oh, uh uh, I didn't mean that,” Pinkie interrupted desperately, giggling with hysterical terror she held between her clenched teeth. “I meant, uh, you know what, I'm just being a very, very silly pony. But I guess that's what I'm known for, after all! Silly, crazy Pinkie, always saying and doing things that don't mean anything. See ya later, your royalness!”
She zoomed off as fast as possible, carefully not letting her brain understand the words the Princess called out to her with, fleeing for the Twister portion of the five-way game. She was not going to mess up the party any more than it already was messed up! Leave EARLY?! And leave all her friends to do the cleanup, and make them worry about her?! No, that would make the smiles and laughter stop. They had to be happy. Everypony had to be happy.
Her heart was twisting in knots and she barely even knew why, along with her legs, which quickly got all confused between the yellow dots and the green dots and the blue dots and the red dots. There were so many dots, and gosh, she'd never seen Lightning Bolt bend like that before! Veeeery interesting, and there were so many jokes to say about it, but Pinkie's joke maker was broken. She couldn't even pun. And that was as broken as Pinkie could possibly get.
After fifteen minutes of Twister she tried upstairs. Upstairs was even quieter than outside had been – a old phonograph crooned out old timey songs at a low volume, a huge contrast to the noise of downstairs. As she went up the stairs, the walls seemed to eat up the background noise from below, making it fall away. It was like she was rapidly climbing a mountain top super fast, one step a mile, getting closer to that phonograph. It wasn't normally her kind of music, but she liked it now. It made the scratchy bits on her heart a little smoother and less achy as it wobbled and warbled on about lost loves and regrets and old friends gone, even the memories fading.
Even the memories fading.
She blinked back tears at the top step, but not fast enough. A single drop plopped on the wood and stood there, like a mark of her sins. Instead of wiping it up with her hoof, she stepped around it, not feeling like she had the right to hide her sadness anymore.
Upstairs, Matilda and Cranky Doodle were relaxing in a parlor room of green potted plants, white doilies and glass cabinet-housed fine china, just listening to the music and leaning against each other. Everything about the sounds, the sights, even the smells was... not a party, but not an unparty either. It was what old people did instead of party, maybe. They weren't laughing, but they didn't look sad either, and that intrigued Pinkie.
She set hoof in the room, and the last remains of the party quieted down to nothing. A pink balloon with a light blue ribbon had made its way up here before deflating. Formerly massive, its shriveled, hollow body hung over a side table, once the epitome of everything party as it had flitted through the air, now motionless, purposeless and empty. Trash to be thrown away.
“Oh, hello there Pinkie,” Matilda greeted her, smiling. It was not a very big smile. “Don't tell me that hootananny got too rambunctious even for the premiere party pony.”
“Eepers, no, no no no,” Pinkie said quickly, politely, smilingly. “I'm just taking a lil break because whew, all that dancing and Twistering and stuff wore me out! See how sweaty I am? Especially around the face? I probably stink like smelly cheese rolled in hairballs!”
“Well, sit a spell then, if you like,” Cranky offered, something like pity in his face and voice. She couldn't figure out why, probably because she kept getting distracted by his toupee.
She sat a spell, and for a change, didn't say anything. It was quiet. Pinkie had almost fooled herself into believing she was relaxed when she noticed her hooves were trembling a little. Looking at them was a mistake. A huge mistake. The donkey couple saw her looking, followed her eyes with theirs, and she was a bad party pony, wasn't she? She was in a party and all she could think of was how much she just wanted to go home. She just wanted to go home.
Matilda's hoof covered over her own tenderly, and Cranky aimed a wry smile in her direction. They knew how it was, they didn't hate her or think she was being silly.
“Can't be a happy party pony all the time, now can we,” Cranky said. “Being happy gets to wear on the soul. Don't recommend it, myself, excepting maybe after a few glasses of sarsaparilla. Not too often, mind you.”
“I guess,” she mumbled, looking downward, her guilt making every bit of her from her fetlocks to her nose tingle.
“It's okay, dear,” Matilda told her, and said nothing more than that. And, somehow, it did help. Just a little bit.
“Matilda, why-”
The words went poof. Or really, they were there, but she couldn't say them.
Why are we having a party.
They waited patiently for her to finish her sentence, as though they had all the time in the world, their eyes curious but not judging. And she couldn't do it. Not because of her shame, her secret, although that was still there, too. But because she had suddenly realized that she had no idea what the answer would be, and some deep part of her wondered if maybe it would be something she wouldn't like hearing.
If she dared to ask.
Which she didn't, because Fluttershy didn't have a monopoly on being a fraidy pony.
Instead of talking more, Pinkie Pie shut her mouth and listened to the music of days that would never come again. She let the last little bit of pretend-happiness drift off, and, paradoxically, found a little bittersweet real happiness in not having to be happy anymore. The air was thick with the smell of liniment and butterscotch, and she could see specks of dust floating around in it.
They neither moved away nor hugged her when she started to cry.
