Why am I an earth pony? When I asked my father, he told me about gravity, and entropy, and the cold depths between the black stars that eat entire worlds, but it only confused me more. When I asked my mother, she only laughed, and told me I’m special, whatever anypony says about my form. A princess is always a princess, she said.
My father once told me how he made me. How mother and he reached into Equestria and nudged two rock farmers into marriage, how fate wove a part of father’s robe into every foal the two ponies had. But my origin is not my identity. Just look at Twilight.
An earth pony, I was taught many years ago, is connected to the things of the ground. Not dirt, but the magic within it, the extra meaning of it. I never felt that connection. As I grew up on the rock farm, I often looked for something else to occupy my attention. The ponies I played cuckoo for blamed my strangeness on an ancestor. Grand-grand-mother, if I remember correctly. She must have been the one that drew my father’s attention to Equestria. But, they insisted that when I discovered my talent, I would know my connection to the earth.
When that day came, I did not see the earth. Instead, I saw a flash of colors not meant for an earth pony’s eyes in a sonic rainboom. It is a mercy, I think, that Rainbow Dash never realized the full potential of that maneuver. The colors I saw, if they were freed to go across Equestria’s sky, would burn a hole straight into the gray skies of my father’s home. What they brought me instead of physical closeness to my father was a mental closeness. I knew my father since I was little, but for the first time, I understood a part of him.
When my father arrived in my mother’s world, he chose to appear at a party. I saw, for the first time, why. He does not eat worlds. He is not a mindless destroyer and creator. He is, instead, the force of preservation, of caring and kindness. My father moves worlds beyond entropy, so deep into that dark territory that nothing dies, and everything can flourish. That is the reason why artists and philosophers leave my father to create great things. They see the true potential of all things, after they’ve moved past every pain, and made a party of things.
Knowing this, I made a party of things, as well. I had to. The rainbow in my mind bloomed into so many new ideas I just had to make them appear. My poor pony parents, my wonderful mortal babysitters, they had no idea where the cake came from, and how I created the balloons. Again, they blamed my ancestor, and hinted at witchcraft and nomadic roots. Then, they laughed and accepted the new, bubbly me.
At first, my cutie mark appeared to be a trio of balloons, two blue and one yellow. Over the years, my flank turned into three yellow balloons, a sign of my father formed by the strings. But, for all the changes, my form remained stubbornly earth pony. I must admit I was disappointed on that first day, when I did not grow wings or a horn.
I had to move to Ponyville to avoid the questions, the endless prodding. I chose to live with the Cakes because they shared my love for parties, even if they were quiet. At first, I hid my unique nature. But, slowly, I learned that the ponies here accept strangeness. My entropy sense, the predictive power I owed to my alien spirit, they nicknamed “Pinkie Sense”, and laughed at as just another of my quirks. They loved my parties, even if they sometimes made no sense to them. Reversing entropy and playing with the angles of time soon became a normal part of my life. I was myself, and ponies understood only a small portion of that.
My friends ultimately had to accept me without understanding, as well. Twilight came closest, I must admit now. She used science, and measurement. I wonder now what powers she would have unleashed if I allowed her to see everything. I had so much fun, back then, that I never even noticed how much pain I brought her. Looking back, I wish I used that pain like a scalpel, to separate Twilight from her illusions about the world. But, I was young and more than a little giddy with the possibilities.
Now, millennia later, I look no different from any other earth pony, and I must ask why. For a brief time in my youth, I was aware of a group of creatures, things that Lyra Heartstrings, my old friend, would label “humans”, watching my every move. I played with them, much to their delight and my pony friends’ terror. That all stopped when I grew up. Entering adulthood, I saw the last of these invisible watchers disappear. Then, Rarity died. Accidents happen.
I cried. The six were five, and I could not understand why my father warned me not to bring Rarity back. I found a pony whose talent involved alcoholic drink, and I drank myself into a deep sleep, that lasted almost a week. The other thought I killed myself. Digging my way out, I had too much to explain. So, instead, I gave up the Element of Laughter. I moved beyond it. And it moved beyond me.
When I first read my father’s play, the one they say comes as his power enters the world in full, I realized what I experienced, even if I did not understand it. The beginning is boring, painfully everyday. The second act then rises to the heights of beauty, plummets, and then shows hints of a struggle upwards once more, even with the pain of all that happened.
Rarity’s death hurt me more than losing Gummy. More than knowing Granny Smith died. I did not expect to miss anypony, when father said I would always live. I had to run away from it. Giving up Laughter had to be the answer, if I could not die, could not go mad from grief. The pain piled up, and I moved away, leaving my necklace to some other pony. I focused on music, on organizing events, on creating new games. I made a small fortune, which I spent on ever-greater acts of dark revenge against entropy.
It is at one of these parties-to-end-all-parties that I once more met Fluttershy. Some alcohol, and the pegasus could be a party animal as frightening as me. She was the first to suggest I come back to Ponyville. In the end, I did. What else could I do, when a pony proclaimed their love for me so loudly that a cricket could hear it?
When I returned, Discord welcomed me, and told me how much he missed me, and how he wished I would find my connection to the Elements of Harmony again. I smiled, and told him that I would try. He and I had an understanding, as rivals. He represented his parents, and I represented mine, but we could still be friends. Besides, our missions were not that different. We were both creatures tied to the chaos beyond chaos.
So, I stayed. For a brief time, I knew peace. Then, one by one, I lost everypony. I watched Twilight in bed, Spike by her side. I did not expect to live longer than a pony like her. In the end, I watched even Celestia and Luna die. Discord bawled like a baby, and I stood there, watching Equestria’s sun turn red, and the moon break up.
I stayed in Ponyville, and made it a capital of a new Equestria. Discord and I played at controlling the great red giant of a sun and the black shards of the moon. I called myself Pinkamena the Red, and he proclaimed himself the Twisting Stone King. But, in the end, we had to give up rule. We were too rough on the ponies, too inpony to understand that the pain we brought often broke, rather than grew, the civilization we sought to bring about.
Finally, we chose a day, and had a duel, in which we both apparently died. Discord went away, then, back to his mother. The old goat goddess welcomed him, saying he’d done well. I wondered if my father would welcome me this way. He loved me, but never told me why, for all those years, I remained an earth pony. Why, when being a unicorn would have saved me from strange looks and loneliness. Why, when as a pegasus, I could escape my troubles through strength and competition. His love often seemed cruelty to my pony eyes, even if a part of me welcomed pain, melancholy, and truth.
My mother contacted me as the first stars began to dim into blackness, and the sky turned a slightly lighter shade of black. She told me to write something, something I could send across the vast gulfs of space and time to some other world, perhaps another Ponyville, for another Pinkie to read.
Now, as the black-light sun turns ever-darker and smaller, and the sky is a brilliant gray of many shades and colors, I ask you, my reader, whoever you are, to love your world. I see now, why I am an earth pony. I am a Princess, I am the one that must begin the Party. So, I stamp my hoof, and I watch the ground break, and Ponyville, my Ponyville, rises up. Oh, dear reader, you cannot imagine the beauty of this place, now. For a brief moment, I see bones and shadows, and then, all becomes light and motion.
I see Chrysalis and her swarm dancing with Cadence and Prince Sombra. I listen to Lyra and Octavia arguing about music with DJ Crystal. I even see cultists, my cultists in the brief time I spent as a goddess of the Red Sun, offering tea and cupcakes to Celestia. And, I see my six friends. No, they are more than friends now. As they walk towards me, I see they finally understood. Rainbow Dash’s mane holds more colors than seven, and I hesitate to name some of them. Twilight’s eye glow with knowledge of things between things, and Spike is smiling as he holds up a many-faceted jewel that only Carcosa could produce. Fluttershy still hides behind everypony, but I can see her. She is beautiful. And, she has cupcakes.
“Sometimes, it is better to be lost than to be found.” I hear behind me, and I know mother and father are here. They came! And, as I look up at father’s robe of yellow, at his beautiful face, I can’t help but wonder what wonderful things will happen now. Dear reader, I hope you come soon…
Author's Note
An Epilogue:
Somewhere in time and space, Twilight Sparkle sighs, and puts down the book.
“This Howard guy doesn’t know our Pinkie at all! She’d never use words like that! And mentioning the King in Yellow? That’s sick! We’re never letting another human into Equestria!”