The Wheel and the Butterfly

A Dan X Pinkie Pie saga

Part 1 Pinkie Vs. Van Nuys

Chapter 6 Pinkie Vs. Loneliness

Dan looked down with a huff at the girl whose head currently occupied his lap along with a couple of, now bloodstained, throw pillows.

He had taken the time to clean the blood out of her hair while he cleaned her wound, but a cloth soaked in alcohol wasn’t exactly going to work on a pillow.

Typical. I go out for an evening of righting wrongs and I have to run into a girl from another dimension.

She manages to injure herself, because she’s clearly the clumsiest being in existence.

Chris, of course, dumps her on me…

And worse of all, I can’t reach the TV remote like this!

Slider pony girl is just going to have to go to her own apartment, and that is that.

“Can you walk?” Dan asked, irritated, as usual.

Pinkie, who was physically and mentally exhausted at this point, put on her best puppy dog face.

“Listen, that sad girl stuff might work on Chris, but not me. I’m not running a shelter for filthy and pathetic creatures, here.”

Mr. Mumbles walked into the room from the kitchen and mewed. Dan shot her a ‘you’re not helping’ look.

“But…” Pinkie started.

“Just answer my question. You have a place to stay that isn’t here, and I’ve had a looooong night. I’d rather not spend the rest of it explaining how forks work.”

“I know what a fork…”

“I DON’T CARE WHAT UTENSILS YOU DO AND DON’T UNDERSTAND!” Dan roared.

“CAN…”

“…YOU…”

“…WALK!?”

Pinkie swallowed.

I don’t want to spend the night alone in this strange place.

There’s strange noises coming from everywhere!

It’s like someone is having a fireworks party without all the pretty explosions!

On the other hoof…HAND, Dan clearly isn’t in the mood to let me sleep here…

“I…I think…” Pinkie managed to stammer.

“Good.” Dan wasted no time getting one of Pinkie’s arms over his shoulders and stood up suddenly. Pinkie struggled to maintain balance as Dan grabbed her keys off the table and practically dragged her to the door.

“My…my bag…” Pinkie managed.

Dan grumbled a, “Grrrrrr” and held up Pinkie’s keys in front of her face.

Pinkie instinctively grabbed them with her mouth and Dan grabbed her bag, opened his door and walked bag and girl to the door.

“Unlock it,” He demanded.

Much to his surprise, Pinkie leaned down with the keys in her mouth and managed to unlock the door with a key clenched in her teeth.

Huh, guess there’s a lot of that going on in pony land without the use of hands.

Pinkie opened the door.

The place was sparsely furnished, smelled odd (though a bit more pleasant than Dan’s apartment), and was a bit untidy (again, not nearly as bad as Dan’s apartment).

The layout being a mirror of his own, Dan navigated Pinkie to the bed, and gracelessly deposited her and bag on it, and turned to walk out.

Pinkie started gently sobbing and Dan stopped dead in his tracks.

Well…if she stayed, I could at least change her bandage later and…

No.

NO, NO, NO, NO.

I am NOT going to be swayed by the oldest trick in the book.

“Da…Dan?” Pinkie stammered, “I’m scared…”

…Or the second.

Dan turned around.

Despite only the street lights outside to illuminate them both, Pinkie’s flushed face contrasted strongly against the white bandage on her head. Tears streamed down her face at an impressive rate.

Dan sighed.

She can’t stay with me. There’s just no way I’m going to give in there…

…But I guess it won’t hurt to show some mercy…

…Much.

He wordlessly walked over, sat on the bed, undid Pinkie’s boot laces, and removed them as well as her soaked socks. Pinkie lifted up a foot into view, wiggling her toes and examining them for the first time.

Dan faced away from Pinkie as he sat on the edge of her bed. “Look, we are not friends. I don’t want to be your friend…but...” Dan sighed, knowing he would regret the next words out of his mouth, “…I am next door in case something bad happens.”

Pinkie was silent.

Dan stood up to leave, “And I mean life threateningly ‘bad’. Don’t come knocking just because you’ve had a bad dream or something. I swear,” Dan’s expression started shifting from regular mad, to eye twitching, teeth clenching, maddening mad, “if you wake me up in the middle of the night because you feel homesick, I will BURN everyth…” Dan heard the jingling of keys.

“Dan?”

“WHAT?”

“Catch.”

Dan turned in time to nab one of Pinkie’s keys she had lobbed at him.

He turned around and continued towards the door.

“…And thank you for saving me and taking care of me,” Pinkie added.

Dan opened the door and paused for a second, then walked forward closing the door behind him.

Pinkie resumed her gentle sobbing. She was well past ‘laughing’ her fears away at this point.

I’ve been almost killed twice in two different dimensions in a matter of minutes from each other?! How the hay does that even happen?!

AND WHAT IN TARTARUS IS THAT NOISE OUTSIDE?!

It’s like somepony is having a crazy fire cracker party indoors.

Geez, even I know better than to do that…

…again.

How am I supposed to get some sleep like this?

Tears streamed down Pinkie’s face and soaked the pillow case underneath it.

My body is all achy, my head is all hurty…my heart is all hurty…and I just want to see my friends again!

“Pinkie?”

And now I’m hallucinating Twilight’s voice. Awesome sauce.

“Pinkie!”

Wow, I must have really hit my head a lot of times tonight…

“PIIIIIIINKIEEEEEE!”

Pinkie looked up and realized the sound was coming from her bag, she sat up, opened it, and noticed there was light emitting from the cracks between the closed compact mirror.

Hardly being able to contain herself, she opened the compact.

“EVERYPONY! YOU’RE ALL RIGHT!” Pinkie replied with a tearful, but exuberant smile.

Through the small mirror, she could make out all her friends that where with her at Rarity’s boutique, Princess Celestia, AND Princess Luna.

Yeesh, my friends had certainly pulled out all the stops to contact me.

It’s actually kinda embarrassing…

Her friends and the Princesses clearly where a bit surprised, however Spike and Twilight recovered quickly.

“Pinkie! You’re…human!”

“Yepper!” Pinkie pulled the mirror back to reveal more of her body and stretched her other arm behind her. This seemed to freak her audience out a bit more, however Spike took stock of everyone else’s expressions and started laughing.

Twilight took a quick glance at Spike, then back at Pinkie.

Well, I’ve dealt with humans before… Though, I expected her to be pinker and a little younger looking.

“Are you alright?” Twilight asked.

“I…” Pinkie felt the bandage on her head. “Well…”

Pinkie inhaled a large amount of air.

“…first this guy tried to attack me, but then this other guy saved me and then the first guy got hit by a carriage of some sort driven by guy and did I mention the guy who saved me was named Dan and the guy driving the carriage without ponies was named Chris? Anyhow, Dan put something in his mouth and set it on fire, but started coughing, then I helped him and thanked him and Chris but I don’t think Dan really liked me but Chris said I could come with them, so Dan set the guy who attacked me on fire again…Oh he did that when he saved me the first time, I don’t think I mentioned that…so anyway Dan let me come with them, then we went to this place called Burgerphile where…” Pinkie glanced at Fluttershy, “Uh…we had…”

“…”

“…food…”

“…”

“…from plants.”

“oh, and a milkshake! OH and I found all this neat stuff in my bag! We’ll have to figure out what it all does! But I got a camera! And I took a picture of Chris and Dan, and I think Dan is lactose intolerant because he seems to specifically hate dairy products amongst other things and then we left and we couldn’t go to Chris’s for reasons that sound really cryptic and a little explodey but he suggested I get a place next to Dan’s and Dan started laughing and we laughed for a really long time and then I got this place and there was this nice man who seemed to know I was a pony somehow, and OH! Dan figured out I was a pony because he’s really, really, REALLY, smart and I gave the man a bunch of money which I seem to have a lot of for some reason and he gave me some keys and I got really, really, really, REALLY, excited and told Dan, but fell down and hurt my head real bad, but Dan took care of me and dropped me off back here and said he didn’t want to be my friend but I know deep down he really WANTS another friend and he said I could ask for help if my life was in danger…”

“…”

“And then I heard my mirror talking, and that’s about it.”

The crowd’s expression seemed a bit more relieved. If there was any doubt they were talking to Pinkie Pie, it was gone now.

“Well…” Twilight continued, “sounds like you had quite the evening.”

“And quite the meal,” Spike added with a knowing grin.

Twilight shot him a quick scowl and elbowed him with one of her front legs. Spike let out an “Oof” but continued his grin.

“Oh, darling! We were ever so worried about you! Twilight sent word to the Princess who rushed from Canterlot to pick us up,” Rarity explained motioning at Princess Luna and Princess Celestia.

Celestia stepped forward. “Hello, Pinkie Pie. I trust you’re okay?”

“Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! I‘m so happy to see all my friends are okay!”

Celestia closed her eyes and smiled. “Well, I’m happy we could put that fear to rest. My sister and I will leave you and your friends to catch up. We’ll continue trying to figure out how to get to you back.”

At that, Luna smiled and nodded as Celestia and she trotted out of the room.

“Oh, Twilight I KNEW you’d find a way!.. How are you guys talking to me, anyhow?”

Twilight smiled warmly, “Princess Celestia, Luna, and I all combined our magic to try to feel where you had been sent. We got a rough idea, but couldn’t figure out exactly where you where until…” Twilight motioned to Rarity, “Rarity joined in and pin-pointed exactly where you were.”

“That’s AMAZING Rarity!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“Well, I’ve always had a horn for details,” Rarity said. “Anyhow, the three Princesses did the hard part,” she added, motioning to Twilight. “I had nothing to do with the mirror.”

Pinkie considered her own mirror in front of her, it was vibrating with speech every time somepony talked. “So you have a mirror over there, too?”

Must be a lot bigger than my teensy-weensy mirror if I can see everypony.

“Yep!” Twilight answered. “Once we figured out where you were the Princess and I worked to contact you using somewhat similar magic to the magic that transported me across dimensions,” Twilight frowned, “but we haven’t figured out how to actually transport you back yet.”

“That’s okay Twilight. You’re the smartest pony I know! You’ll figure it out,” Pinkie said enthusiastically. “So! What happened to those things that were after me?”

Rainbow Dash spoke up “They took one look at me, and decided they didn’t have a prayer then just took off!”

“Wowwie-zowwie, Rainbow Dash!”

Applejack rolled her eyes, “She means they jus’ took off. They jus’ sort uh disappeared right after you did.”

“I’m glad they did…they were scary.” Fluttershy added.

Pinkie thought for a second.

Geez-Louise! I don’t know the first thing about those cloudy thingies except their scary sounding name of the ‘The Order Keepers’. Oooo! Also, they called me ‘The Warper’.

And why would they send me here and give me enough supplies to… “yawn” …supplies to…

“Pinkie?”

“Oh, sorry Twilight. Looooong night.”

“I understand completely. Should we let you get some rest? We can keep the communication open indefinitely. Princess Luna and Celestia made it so the magic is fueled by the light of the sun and the moon. You’re safe where you’re at, right?”

“Yes,” Pinkie remembered Dan’s offer, “I am. Thanks, Twilight…everypony…I think…I think sleeps a good idea. Goodnight everypony.” Her friends waved and a chorus of goodnights rang out. Pinkie Pie closed her compact, laid down, hugged the compact around her chest, and shut her eyes. Finally feeling some degree of peace after everything that had happened.

Dan pulled his ear from the wall. He WAS going to beat on it and yell at Pinkie to keep that obnoxious sobbing down. The same walls that offered little buffering against an amateur rock band also provided little muffling for sad sobbing, but he heard her and voices and decided it would be better to listen in.

Pinkie is easy enough to hear. No surprise there, but I wonder what her…uh…pony friends where saying.

So, something is after her?

Dan yawned, stripped to his boxers and climbed into bed. “Come on, Mr. Mumbles.”

His cat jumped onto the bed next to him and curled up.

Well…whatever is after her isn’t my problem.

Dan suddenly remembered the last thing he said to Pinkie.

…At least…It better not become my problem.

Dan turned out his light, and quickly fell asleep.

Author's Notes:

Revised