And Then There Was One

by LaLaLiberte

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, Dark, Sad
Length: 1011

What if Twilight got it wrong?

Even Twilight makes mistakes. This one was just a little more important than most.

Warning: Contains mild spoilers for Season 3 Episode 3

Image credit goes to RaccoonKun22

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2012-11-22 01:16:53 UTC

Last Pinkie Standing

This is a response to some of the unanswered questions raised by Season 3 Episode 3. Namely about Twilight's previously unheard of knowledge of spells that make ponies explode (seriously, where did she learn that one? Before or after the Changeling invasion?). Please note that it does contain spoilers for episode three (and it will make absolutely no sense if you haven't watched it yet), so read at your own risk

Pinkie Pie wanders the streets of Ponyville, and it occurs to her that she doesn’t remember how to get home. She lives on Sugarcube Corner – one of the other Pinkies had mentioned that – and she knows, instinctively, that Sugarcube Corner has the best cakes. It’s just that, as hard as she tries, she can’t recall how to get there.

So Pinkie walks on, trusting her hooves to take her where she needs to go. Twilight had mentioned something about it before – muscle memory she called it, or maybe muscular mamories? – and Twilight’s really smart, so this has to work. Because if Pinkie can’t remember the way home, what else has she forgotten?

Pinkie’s leg twitches and her tail starts tingling, and before she knows it she’s standing in front of a hot pink door. The door is attached to the building, and the building to a sign, so she knows this has to be Sugarcube Corner. Only it doesn’t seem familiar at all.

It’s not the store itself – the construction is lovely, and Pinkie is certain – beyond certain, even; more like absolutely positutely sure – that if she had to live anywhere she’d want to live here. It’s her dream house, a gingerbread creation straight out of her wildest imaginings, and she hazards a guess that it even tastes like cookie dough. But when she steps through the doorway and into the warm lights of the café, the place seems alien to her. Alien in a good way, sure – like those cute green skinned creatures that occasionally bounce around at the edges of her vision – but alien all the same.

The feeling gets worse when she enters her room for the first time. Because, crazy as it sounds, it truly does feel like the first time. The furniture is exactly as she’d like it, and the décor simply marvelous, as Rarity would say, but there’s a tiny pinching in her stomach reminding her that she really ought to remember picking out those sheets or painting the walls that adorable teddy bear pattern.

But maybe it’s normal for ponies to forget things like that. Rainbow’s always going on about the weird stuff she finds in her room, so maybe it’s not that odd that Pinkie doesn’t know how those balloons got there or who left that phonograph on the desk. Maybe she should just be happy to discover all this cool new stuff she must’ve left there yesterday – like a treasure hunt, only instead of gold coins she’s found a bed!

Except that, to be honest, Pinkie doesn’t really know if Rainbow’s always telling stories about the strange junk she uncovers in her cloudhouse – Pinkie doesn’t really know if Rainbow always talks about anything at all. Pinkie can only theorize based on the things Rainbow told her about today, and suddenly that doesn’t seem like very much at all.

But aren’t she and Rainbow supposed to be friends? Only, now that she thinks about it, Pinkie doesn’t really know much about the five ponies she allegedly spends all her time with. Shouldn’t friends know everything about one another? Maybe Pinkie’s not such a great friend after all.

Only, Pinkie’s pretty sure she is a great friend – a spectacular one, even – because Twilight told her so. But, then again, what does she know about Twilight?

This gives Pinkie pause. What does she know about Twilight?

She knows that Twilight is her friend.

She knows that Twilight really seems to value the magical properties of paint, and, by extension, ponies who appreciate those properties.

She knows that Twilight isn’t very fun.

She knows that Twilight was willing to risk destroying one her best friends forever, and didn’t appear to be all that worried about getting it wrong.

And suddenly Pinkie isn’t all that sure why she’s friends with Twilight.

Because she’s getting the niggling impression that Twilight might have made a horrible, horrible mistake.

After all, shouldn’t the real Pinkie Pie remember the name of the princess she’s supposed to be writing a letter to?

Err...so yeah. Tell me what you think. As in, review, because I still haven't perfected the art of reading minds via the internet. My telepathy still only works face to face.

Author's Note

[b/]Okay, seriously, did it bother anyone else that Twilight’s solution to the problem was to make the Pinkies watch paint dry? Because it seems to me that the real Pinkie Pie would be the first to get bored and abandon the task, not the last. Like, she has the attention span of squirrel on speed. Honestly, this whole thing seemed like a convenient way for Twilight to replace the current, and sometimes irritatingly hyperactive, Pinkie with one who will sit still and do what she’s told. The perfect, if incredibly creepy, way to canonically retcon Pinkie’s personality. Hasbro, what have you done?

This does, however, finally solve the mystery of asexual pony reproduction and the Case of the Multiple Bon Bons. It might also give canonical basis for the idea of Pinkamena being a separate entity from Pinkie Pie, or even a tyrant Celestia hiding impudent ponies away in her moon dungeons and replacing them with perfect copies. Actually, this opens up the roads for a lot of potential grimdark fics. And clop fics. And explanations for why everyone was so inconsistently characterized last season (like, seriously, the Rainbow Dash had a different personality every episode, and only half of them were gay. Maybe bisexual Rainbow Dash is just two different Rainbow Dashes? The world may never know.).