Night had fallen over Ponyville as the shimmering moon rose in the sky. For the town of Ponyville, that meant snuggling in their beds for the night, waiting for the journey to dreamland.
Pinkie Pie trudged through the empty town, her head and ears uncharacteristically drooped. Even though she snuggled under the sheets and let her head sink into her plush pillow, Pinkie Pie had not been able to fall asleep. If she had, the dreams would come again, and she could not endure another sleepless night dotted with terror.
It had been a week since the incident with the mirror pool. One week since dozens of her clones had torn through town, ruining everypony's day.
It had almost cost Pinkie her life.
Pinkie sniffled and listened to the crickets chirping their serene call. Ponyville had truly gone down for the night as Pinkie Pie alone listened to the nightly noises. The homes were dark, the shops had closed up for the night, and most everypony was probably asleep. Pinkie didn't care about any of that right now. She had somewhere to be. The thought had entered her head a few minutes after she had woken up screaming. She thought that she remembered Twilight saying something about her reading a psychology book that said returning to a place where something bad happened might help the pain lessen. With the mirror pool itself sealed for good, that meant only one location.
The dark mass that was the barn where the test had taken place loomed over her as she walked up to the entrance. She gently nudged the door open and walked inside. No lights were in in the main room, but there were still traces of what had happened there. The wall of paint was still on the stage, now completely dried and even chipping a little.
Pinkie slowly trotted up to the wall and shakily raised a hoof to touch the paint. She choked back a sob and she ran her hoof down the wall. Little flecks of paint chipped off when she did. Her legs began wobbling as she continued to stare at the wall, and she had to sit down on her haunches with her back to it for support.
Her vision was filled with the empty floor. This must have been what it was like for Twilight, she thought. She would have been able to see all of the Pinkies here. She could shoot them all back to the mirror pool. She would shoot her magic at them, and they would scream in pain as they got hit.
Pinkie choked back another sob and her gaze trailed to the floor. She thought that she had heard screaming when they were hit. True, she hadn't been fully paying attention, but it was hard not to hear when another Pinkie was zapped back to the pool. They had screamed in pain.
Pinkie got to her hooves and walked a few feet away from the stage. A slight frown crossed her face as she examined a nearby spot on the floor. It looked like a scorch mark of some sort. Had Twilight's magic really done that to them? Yes it was dark and hard to see in the barn, but...
Pinkie reached out a hoof and softly ran her hoof over the mark. The second she did, her ears were filled with the sound of one of the Pinkie Pies screaming as they were zapped back to the pool. With a small scream of her own, Pinkie Pie leaped backwards. Her back hooves landed on the stage, and she was thrown off balance. She collided with the floor with a grunt of pain. She opened her eyes and shakily got to her hooves. The scorch mark was still there, and she gingerly walked around it. As she did, her hoof landed on the floor and she heard yet another scream. With a squeak, Pinkie Pie lifted up her hoof. Another scorch mark. Another Pinkie Pie that died in pain.
Pinkie Pie whimpered and slowly raised her eyes to scan the floor. It was full of black marks where Pinkies had once sat. Each time her eyes landed on one, another scream rang through her ears. They wouldn't stop screaming. It was all her fault they were screaming. Pinkie Pie let out a sob and bolted out of the barn, slamming the door behind her. It has been a mistake to go there. She realized that now.
Pinkie ran her hoof on the ground to wipe the flecks of paint off. She briefly considered going back to Sugarcube Corner, but that was a foolish idea. She was only awake because of another nightmare. She had rolled out of bed and begun sobbing hysterically. It woke up the twins, which in turn woke the Cakes up. Mrs. Cake had tried to comfort Pinkie as she cried on the floor, but Pinkie knew that she needed to be alone.
Well, either that or she needed to talk to somepony. She didn't fancy talking to the Cakes after having woken them up. That left her friends. Yes, her friends could work. They might want to help her. They were closer than sisters. They would be there for her!
A small grin crossed Pinkie Pie's face, and she pushed herself off of the ground. She dragged herself towards the closest home of one of her friends: Carousel Boutique. It wasn't too far away from the barn. She could see it in the distance from where she was. It would be a quick walk, and then Rarity could help her. A small smile crossed her face as the memories of Rarity's generosity entered her brain. This was the mare that had made them all two Gala dresses. "She'll help me," Pinkie whispered.
As she drew closer, she hesitated for a moment when she saw the state that the building was in. Oh, it was still in fine condition, but the way it looked in the darkness made it seem unfriendly. Pinkie resolutely shook her head. "It's just Rarity's house," she muttered to herself. "It's not so scary."
She reached the front door and rapped her hoof three times on the entrance. Hopefully Rarity was awake and not too tired. As generous as the mare was, she could be cranky when she needed her beauty sleep.
She was thankful that she only had to wait a few moments before she heard movement inside the boutique. The heavy hoofsteps were indicative of Rarity and not her filly sister, something that Pinkie Pie was grateful for. As much as she loved Sweetie Belle, she couldn't help with this.
The door to the boutique cracked open, and Pinkie saw one of Rarity's eyes glaring through the doorway. She could tell that it was bloodshot even through the relative darkness. Rarity had clearly been sleeping. "I thought it would be obvious that I'm closed right now!" Rarity growled. "I'll be open at nine tomorrow!"
Pinkie's head drooped and she took a step backwards. "Okay, Rarity. I'm sorry if I woke you."
"Pinkie?" Rarity cracked the door open and stuck her head out. "Oh, Pinkie Pie, good evening." She yawned and rubbed her eyes with a hoof. "How are you this..." Rarity stopped mid-sentence when she got a good look at her friend. Pinkie Pie's lower jaw was quivering, and she leaned one of her legs one the doorway as if to keep herself from collapsing. The fur on her face was streaked with tears. "Pinkie, darling, whatever is the matter?"
Pinkie wiped her eyes with her foreleg. "I... I'm feeling really bad, Rarity," she whispered. " I feel really bad about the mirror pool."
Rarity gave her friend a weak smile and put a hoof on her shoulder. "You don't need to, Pinkie. We all forgave you for that."
Pinkie's lower jaw began quivering. "But I don't know if I can. How am I supposed to when I ruined your day?"
Rarity shook her head. "No, darling, it wasn't so—" Rarity let loose another yawn. "So bad. I didn't lose a lot of work over that."
Pinkie flattened her ears and poked the ground with her hoof. "But you still lost some work, didn't you?"
Rarity chuckled nervously. "W-well, yes. That's to be... expected when setbacks occur."
I'm a setback. "Setbacks," Pinkie mumbled.
Rarity placed a hoof on Pinkie's shoulder. "Pinkie, please don't be too hard on yourself. You just made a mistake, that's all. It's not so bad in the end."
"What about the other Pinkies?" Pinkie whispered.
Rarity cocked her head and put her hoof back on the ground. "Beg pardon?"
Pinkie Pie sniffled and wiped her eyes. "I've been having these really bad memories. I... I keep remembering that whenever they got hit by Twilight... it hurt them. They cried out in pain whenever they got sent back to the pool." Pinkie's ears drooped, and her gaze turned to the ground. "I never wanted to hurt anypony."
Rarity bit her lip and glanced to the side. "Well, darling, I can't say for sure whether or not it hurt any of the Pinkies. I wasn't there so I wouldn't know." Rarity's smile returned. "I'm sure that Twilight would know. You can ask her when you see her next."
"I guess so," Pinkie muttered. "I guess I'll talk to her next."
"I think that she'd be just the right pony to help you, Pinkie. She'd know everything you wanted to ask her."
* * * *
Pinkie Pie's hoof met the library door three times. "Please be home, Twilight. Please help me!"
No response save for silence.
She knocked again. "I need your help! I have to know if I h-hurt them!"
Once again there was nothing. Not even the sound of a quill scratching on paper or Spike's snoring. Why wouldn't she...?
Canterlot.
Twilight had gone to Canterlot for the weekend to visit her family. The library was empty. Twilight wouldn't be home for a few days.
Pinkie Pie's lower jaw quivered at the revelation, and she collapsed onto her haunches to being crying again. Nopony was there, nopony could hep her! Rarity was out, Twilight was out, Fluttershy and Applejack couldn't be bothered. Even Rainbow was...
Rainbow Dash.
Pinkie's ears flicked up, and her gaze shot upwards until it locked onto the familiar cloud house of her best friend. Maybe...
Slowly, she pushed herself up to her hooves and dragged herself towards the direction of the floating mansion. It was close enough that she reached it within a minute or so. She arched her head upwards. The lights were out, so Rainbow Dash would be asleep right now. It seemed selfish of her to just wake Rainbow Dash up, but...
"Dashie..." she whimpered. "I need you, Dashie."
Almost instantly she heard a groan from inside the cloud house, and a second later she saw Rainbow Dash's sleepy head poke out of one of the front door. "Yeah, Pinkie, what...?" Rainbow Dash's eyes widened when she saw her friend crying, and she took off towards Pinkie so fast that part of her porch disintegrated.
"Dashie," Pinkie whimpered again.
Rainbow Landed next to Pinkie and wrapped a wing around her. "What's wrong, Pinkie?"
She threw her forelegs around Rainbow Dash's shoulders and sobbed into her friend's chest. The tears flowed hard and fast from her eyes and her body convulsed with sobs. "I’m sorry Dashie. I'm so, so sorry. I almost ruined everything!"
Rainbow was silent for a moment before she wrapped her forelegs around Pinkie's shoulders. "Is this about the Mirror Pool last week? If so, don't sweat it, we all forgave you for that. It was just a mistake; we all make them."
Pinkie raised her head and looked at Rainbow Dash with wide, watery eyes. "But my mistake was the worst one I've ever made! I almost ruined everypony's lives, including mine! I still have nightmares about what would have happened if I hadn't kept watching that paint!"
Rainbow Dash frowned. "You actually have nightmares about that?"
"Yes!" Pinkie Pie wailed. "I just had one last night. I lost my concentration when one of the other Pinkies got zapped back to the pool. I remember that you noticed and pointed me out to Twilight. She hit me with her magic. It hurt so much!"
"H-hurt?"
Pinkie Pie nodded. "Yeah, it really, really hurt. What's worse was that I heard the other Pinkies who got zapped crying out in pain so it didn't just hurt me, it hurt all of them!"
Rainbow Dash said nothing. She hugged Pinkie Pie tight and let the mare continue to cry. She sat on her haunches and began stroking Pinkie's bouncy mane.
Pinkie Pie leaned her head into Rainbow Dash's chest and gently nuzzled her foreleg. "Dashie, I wasn't paying attention, so I don't know, but when Twilight zapped the other clones back to the pool, did it look like it hurt them?"
"No, Pinkie Pie," Rainbow Dash assured her. "No, it didn't look like it hurt them at all, and they certainly didn't cry out in pain. I don't think they felt anything, to be honest."
"I guess that's good," Pinkie muttered. She sniffled and wiped her eyes again. "Dashie?"
"Yeah?"
Pinkie cleared her throat. "I was thinking about something, something that really scared me back when all of the clones went back to the pool."
"What's that?" asked Rainbow.
"You know how those clones were bouncing around and saying 'fun' all the time and generally being a bother... is that who I am? I mean, they were clones of me. Is that really what I'm like?"
Rainbow Dash shook her head. "No, Pinkie Pie. That isn't you. Sure, you like a good party, but who doesn't? You like having fun, but there is a lot more to you than that. You like having fun to make ponies smile. That's a lot more than I can say for the other ones."
"But—"
"That isn't you," Rainbow Dash insisted. "You're not nearly as selfish as they were. They only cared about having fun for themselves, not for other ponies."
Pinkie Pie nodded and wiped her eyes. "I guess so." She sighed again. "I dunno… I guess it's just that I saw them, and they kept bouncing around and saying fun and not being very nice at all. I... I wondered if that's who I really was. I've always wanted to meet myself, just so I could see me how others saw me. When I finally could with the help of the Mirror Pool, I didn't like what I saw at all."
"And neither did we, but we love the real you," Rainbow Dash said. "You are not the kind of pony who would put her needs above the needs of others, especially if it made our friends unhappy."
"But then why didn't you see that the one who was sad was the real me? All of those other Pinkies were acting like you just said, but you still thought that one of those selfish and annoying ponies could be me! Why?"
"Uh well..." Rainbow Dash nervously scratched the back of her head. "I...I don't know, Pinkie," she admitted. "I guess it just goes back to how we all make mistakes."
"But we've known each other for years! You just said that you know that I'm not that shallow, and you don't think that I'm that annoying!"
"Well, I guess it's because all of you said you were the real one. It was hard to know who to believe."
Pinkie nodded glumly and looked down at the ground. "I guess so…" she muttered.
The two sat in silence for a few more minutes before another thought that had been bugging Pinkie surfaced. "Dashie?"
"Yeah?"
"My clones, the ones that got sent back to the pool, what do you think is happening to them?"
Rainbow Dash shook her head. "I don't know what's happening to them, but I don't want you thinking about that. Don't torture yourself thinking about that all the time. Nothing can be gained from it."
"But what if they're suffering in the pool?" asked Pinkie. "It'd be all my fault!"
"Pinkie, don't think like that!" said Rainbow Dash sharply. "If the spell didn't hurt them, then I don't think being in the pool does either. Besides, unless you know for sure what's going on with them, it isn't the smartest idea to lose sleep over it."
"Maybe," said Pinkie. She pulled away from Rainbow Dash and looked out into the water. The way the sun hit it almost reminded her of the Mirror Pool. "It might have been me in there with them and a clone with you guys."
"But it wasn't," said Rainbow Dash, throwing a hoof over Pinkie Pie's shoulder. "You can't play the 'what if…?' game about this, Pinkie. There have been tons of times where I've been flying and I’ve almost crashed in a way that I would’ve been seriously hurt, or even crippled, but I managed to pull up at the last second. I try not to imagine 'what if I had crashed?' because it's not worth losing sleep over. I learn and do better next time so I can avoid doing stuff like that."
"But my mistake in this instance almost erased me from existence," Pinkie squeaked. "Wouldn't you say that's worse than being crippled?"
"Pinkie, I'm gonna say it again, don't play the 'what if…?' game. Yes, you could have had that happen to you and we would have been really sad once we realized our mistake but that's not. What. Happened." Rainbow Dash looked into the air and tapped her lower jaw with her hoof. "What was it that Twilight said that one time...?" Rainbow frowned and scratched her head. "'You can't change the past, but you can learn from it to do better next time' or something like that."
Pinkie Pie managed a small smile. "I think that sounds about right."
Rainbow Dash cocked her head. "Huh, I think I'm beginning to see Pinkie Pie now."
Pinkie Pie frowned. "What do you mean? We've been talking for a while now."
Rainbow Dash shook her head. "No, I think I just saw the real Pinkie Pie just now. There was a smile for a moment there and I saw her."
Despite herself, Pinkie Pie managed a small smile once again, triggering a mirroring grin from Rainbow Dash "Yeah, there she is! That's the Pinkie Pie I know!"
Pinkie Pie giggled and good naturedly pushed her friend. "I've always been here, silly!"
"I know that!" said Rainbow. "You just needed to smile so I could see you, that's all. ’Cause the Pinkie Pie that I know would smile through a time like this. She wouldn't let her mistakes get her down, no matter how bad they were."
"She'd learn from them and try to forgive herself…" Pinkie Pie mumbled.
Rainbow Dash swiveled an ear in Pinkie's direction. "Sorry, didn't catch that, which is too bad because it sounded awesome."
Pinkie's grin widened a little. "She'd learn from her mistakes and try to forgive herself."
"There we go." Rainbow Dash returned Pinkie's smile. "It may take a little while for the wounds to heal, Pinks, but I know you're gonna be alright."
Pinkie Pie giggled again. "I know I will." She threw her forelegs around Rainbow Dash's shoulders again. "I've got friends like you to help me."
"I'd never leave you hangin'."
Pinkie Pie broke away from the hug and wiped the last traces of tears from her face. "When did you get so good at smarty-pants motivational talks?"
Rainbow Dash smirked and shrugged. "I guess Twilight's egghead friendship reports are rubbing off on me a little bit. Besides, there's actually some good stuff in a few of them."
Pinkie giggled. "I guess there is."
Pinkie took a deep breath and managed to push herself to her hooves. "You wanna get some breakfast? My stomach is growling a lot now that I'm not so sad."
Rainbow Dash got to her hooves and nodded. "Anytime, Pinks. Where to?"
Pinkie looked in the direction of Sugarcube Corner. "I think Sugarcube Corner," she said. "I have some worried Cakes to talk to. I kinda scared Mrs. Cake this morning when I jumped out the window."
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow as the two got moving. "You jumped out your bedroom window?"
Pinkie flattened her ears and her cheeks flushed. "Yeah, I kinda freaked out a little when she wanted to talk to me this morning about my nightmares."
Rainbow Dash motioned a hoof in the direction of the confectionery. "Well then, to Sugarcube Corner we go."
Pinkie Pie trotted alongside her friend for a moment, but stopped suddenly to wrap the pegasus in another hug. "Dashie?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
Rainbow Dash smiled. "No problem, Pinkie. I'd never leave my friends hangin'."
