Tragodia: Friendship is Philosophy

Eric goes to Pinkie and extends a hoof. Pinkie cringes, fearful and confused as the zombification has addled her brains. Eric pauses a moment and then fully extends to pat her mane.

“I am not your friend.” Worry returns to Pinkie's eyes as the philosopher speaks. “Yet. I am not your friend yet. If we spend time together, I am confident that we can become true friends. Look around you. These people are not your friends. You cannot be friends with so many people. Friendship takes time and effort. Most importantly it takes genuine love. These people are all here because they did not have genuine friends. You are different. Your friends are elsewhere, and I will bring them to you.” Pinkie's mane starts to regain color, the epicenter being at Eric's touch.

“Think of Applejack and Twilight. Remember how they would feel if they never saw you again. You need to have the courage to continue. You do not not need to do it alone either, we are here. Right Dante?” Dante looks away, pretending to not care.

“I know the feeling of hopelessness. I look at all these people and think what I could do to help them. My instincts buckle against my reason, and I run into them without a plan. Swept up in my ineptitude I almost lost hope too until you saved me Pinkie. I ask you formally here, will you come with me? Not because I need your help or that I enjoy you being with me, but as someone with whom I wish to be real friends.”

At this, Pinkie's mane reinflated, and she exclaims cheerfully, “Why amazing turnips I do! Let me pack my things and let's go!” With lightning speed, Pinkie goes to gather her stuff.

“Well, aren't we a bunch of happy mares?” Dante sarcastically interjects.

“You know, no one will be your friend if you have an attitude like that.”

“Who wants to be friends with a bunch of nut jobs like you? I already have friends anyways. Homer and the rest of the great poets already named me the sixth great poet of all time. I rather be with them than an atheist like you any day.”

“I am sure your god would love to hear that you dislike the work he has given you.”

At this moment, the patiently waiting Pinkie's attention span runs out, causing her to interrupt. “Hey, I thought we were going? Timelessness is not going to wait for us.”

Our heroes continue through the sea of loneliness and despair by holding each others hands tightly. The combined strength of their bonds, weak as they seem, enable them to cross the sea and come to the River Styx.

“How are we to cross?” Pinkie asks.

“Normally, a boat is here to take the souls across. If you look to each side, countless souls who have made it across await the arrival of Charon.” Needless to say that there is indeed souls of ponies and humans alike on each side of the heroes.

Suddenly a shadow overtakes them. The heroes look above to see a metallic chariot glide through the sky. It flies over the River Styx descending. The chariot makes a sudden turn, revealing that four pegasi pulling it. As it nears, Eric and Dante notice that the one riding it is no other than Lyra, in pony form this time.

The group scatters as the chariot comes to a full stop just where they had been standing. Lyra jumps off with air of self-importance.

“Lyra what are you doing here?” Dante aggressively asks.

“I am doing you a favor. I am on my way to see what is keeping Charon away, If you have not noticed there is an awful lot of subjects, or souls as you call them, who need to be cross deeper into Hell. I saw you needed help crossing and thought I would help you while I was going the same way.”

Dante squints his eyes, his skepticism not put at ease by Lyra's explanation.

Looking around, Eric now does notice that there is an awful lot of people and ponies around. Some places it even overflows into the river do to push from behind and lack of room on the beach between river and sea.

“As for you Eric, I was thinking, since I know you so much better from reading your subject file, that you deserve a pony name more befitting your mare form. The Eric business is bound to confuse ponies, and I have one just for you. You shall be hereby called Fillosophia, and short you can go Fillio or Sophie. It captures the eponymous nature of almost all pony names.” Without asking Eric's opinion, Lyra continues in grand fashion to dub her Fillosophia.

Next, Lyra starts bragging about her experiments that are her chariot pegusi. “When I found these four, they were just old humans. In life, they were known as the Four Hoursemen amongst atheists, so I thought that it would be interesting to make what was a joke in life, reality in death. I got much praise from that pretender of a god for this project who so much loves ironic punishments.

“Needless to say, I made them into pegusi. Though pegusi are a subspecies of ponidom, humans tend to think that pegusi are more related to horses. Being one of my first experiments with creating pegusi out of humans, I made many mistakes. Not only did I make them young and healthy, but one of my mistakes made them forget their prior identities and, thus, making them completely subject to my will. Lucky break that mistake was.”

Lyra beings to laugh, but noticing that no one else is, she clears her throat and continues. “As I told you before, I do love the cutie marks of human intellectual and would love to share the marks on these ponies. Would you care”

The first is has an image of an outline of a brain with  Rodan's The Thinker inside. The second had a a The famous stages of human evolution from chimpanzee shape through homo erectus to the modern form. The third had a neuron firing next to smiley face. The last had a shot glass, book, and a podium.  Fillosophia explains, them in turn. “The first one with the statue is Daniel Dennett, a cognitive scientist and philosopher. The statue is symbolic of human rationality and often associated with philosophy. The second is Richard Dawkins who is an evolutionary biologist. The third is Samuel Harris, a neuroscientist interested in creating a moral theory based on human health and flourishing. Last, is Christopher Hitchens, whose cutie mark is the most mixed up the four. The shot glass reflects his love of hard liquor. The book reflects his career as a literary critic. Lastly, the podium symbolizes his affinity for debate.”

Please with herself, Lyra replies, “Just as the report said, very knowledgeable indeed. Oh and so very quick on textbook explanations. If you all do not mind, I do have an important task to do as supervisor of this part of the Inferno, so if you are interested in getting across anytime soon.”

They get on, Pinkie excited to be on such an amazing chariot. Lyra snaps the reins and off the gang go into the bland sky above the River Styx.