Author's Notes:

Added on 01 May 2016

Originally part of Looming War

“WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

Pinkie Pie, glowing from her perfect health, jumps off of a giant rubber ball and launches herself into the air, closing her eyes and grinning from ear to ear as the wind rushes past her ears. When she lands, she lands in a field of flora made up of everything, from candy canes to bonbons and lollipops to gumdrops. It is all there and waiting for her to consume with complete disregard to the risk of diabetic shock.

Pinkie Pie licks up some gumballs and chews them obnoxiously before moving on to gnawing on a banana flavored taffy tree with sugar coated leaves. But while she’s doing that, something so amazing happens that it makes her stop and stare with wide eyes and a huge, toothy grin. The clouds are made up of pink cotton candy. She giggles excitedly as she climbs to the top of the taffy tree to get a closer view of the wispy treats hovering in the sky. When she reaches the top, she balances herself on her hind legs and extends her forehooves authoritatively towards the sky. She’s about to say something, but stops, thinks for a moment, then reaches down and pulls out a random candy cane staff. Once that is in her grip she resumes her authoritative stance.

“By the power invested in me, I command thee to rain chocolate milk!” orders Pinkie Pie.

The command is met with instant gratification. Tubas echo with deafening magnitude as the clouds rain down thick droplets of tasty chocolate milk. Pinkie Pie leans her head back and opens her mouth wide with her tongue hanging out, gladly drinking up the chocolaty goodness. When she has had her fill she leaps off of the tree and lands perfectly in an enormous pile of popcorn. But this pile of popcorn is a special pile. It has more than just the classic butter. It has caramel, cheddar, chocolate, spicy, apple, mint, and fat free popcorn in it, leading to a fantastic mixture of the best snack in the world.

Pinkie Pie eats her way out of the popcorn pile and when she pokes her head out she sees another amazing feat in the slice of heaven she is in right now. Her eyes and grin widen to impossible lengths as she sits on the ground to stare at the amazing feat.

“I can’t believe it,” says Pinkie Pie in a joyful whisper. “It is a field of muffins!”

Pinkie Pie cries like a warrior ready to eat every pastry in the name of her queen as she charges the field. She gobbles up chocolate muffins, banana muffins, blueberry muffins, strawberry muffins, and muffins made up of cookies. Every type of muffin imaginable is in the field of muffins, and snaking through the field is a river made up of strawberry milkshakes.

Pinkie Pie skids to a stop by the milkshake river and stares at in wonder, dumbstruck by the beauty of the thick, frothy pink drink. She thinks for a grand total of three seconds on how she I supposed to drink the milk shake river before deciding to stick her head in, slurping up much of the threat as she can.

When she has had her fill she sighs blissfully and falls on her back on a random patch of grass that has grown behind her. She looks at the clouds, loving the way they come in many different shapes and sizes. Strangely some of them look like her ex-friends doing some kind of activity. One cloud looks like Twilight reading a book with Spike when he was a baby, another looks like Rarity sewing, and the one that looks like Applejack looks like she’s bucking apple. Then there’s Fluttershy sitting with her animals, and Rainbow Dash speeding through clouds.

Pinkie Pie frowns and shifts her position so she doesn’t have to look at the clouds. While shifting her position the ground rises up and turns into the bed she had at the Sugar Cube Corner. The bed is complete with the fluffy sheets, soft pillow, and warm blanket that covers her without her having to raise a hoof.

She lays there for an unknown amount of time, watching anything but the clouds, but no matter how hard she tries, she cannot stop seeing those fakes that she had called her friends. She hears them thank her for her parties, for cheering them up, or accepting her random acts of goofiness with laughter. She also swears she can hear Octavia’s cello in the warm wind. Pinkie Pie huffs and turns to the other side of the bed to change the view, but instead of seeing a never ending field of muffins or taffy trees, she sees her Element of Laughter necklace floating in front of her, glowing.

She stares at it and the jewelry stares back at her. They continue to stare at each other for a few more seconds before it floats over to her and rests in front of her face. She sits up on her bed and stares at it some more. A minute later she picks it up and gently runs her hoof over it, smiling. It brings tears of joy to her eyes as she feels all that is good fill her up. All the joy from laughter, from making others happy, and from being selfless in helping others find happiness flood back to her.

Pinkie Pie chokes back her tears and hugs the necklace tightly with her head bowed and eyes closed. The bed is gently lowered into the ground until she is sitting on grass again, and she continues to hug her necklace, not wanting to let it go for fear that she’ll be miserable again without it.

Then she hears faint noises, like some ponies are conversing with each other in the sky. Pinkie Pie clamps the necklace around her neck and stands up to stare at the clouds. The faint noises get louder every second until she can tell, without a doubt, that someone is speaking.

Pinkie Pie stares up at the clouds as the voices echo, blocking out all other sound and thought. The voices are muffled, though, and soon only one voice is left, and whoever is talking sounds like they are breaking into tears. She can hear the sniffling over the muffled words, and as the voice continues it becomes clearer.

“...I just... I don’t even know if you can hear me. They say ponies in comas can hear when somepony is talking to them. If that is true, then we need to talk... I just only wish it wasn’t like this.”

Pinkie Pie sits on the ground, tears swelling in her eyes. She knows that voice and the pain she is hearing is her fault, she just knows it.

“I’m sorry, Dashie,” whispers Pinkie Pie as she looks down on the ground, tears trickling down her cheek. When the tears land on the grass, their green color rots away into a hideous brown.

“If you can hear me, promise me you’ll stop blaming yourself for what happened. Spike made his choice, and we all... we... I miss you. You have no idea how much I can use one of your party’s right now. Or Fluttershy. She can really use somepony like you to cheer her up.”

Pinkie Pie wipes her eyes as she looks back up at the sky, hoping that she’ll see the face of her best friend. But all she sees are gray clouds swirling around the cotton candy ones, battling each other for dominance of the sky.

“You know, I want to stay mad at Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack for how they treated you, but I can’t. If you could only see what I see you would know that they are sorry. Twilight hasn’t been the same ever since you faked your death and Rarity has been nearly working herself to death. I know Applejack feels like crap for how she treated you, and-”

“Airmare Rainbow Dash,” interrupts another voice; this one belongs to a stallion lacking emotion.

Pinkie Pie gets worried and looks around the clouds for any sign of this newcomer, but she doesn’t see them or Rainbow Dash anywhere. The only thing she sees are the darkened clouds moving in with greater speed and becoming more aggressive with her happy, cotton candy clouds.

“Major Fuller, what are you doing here? And who are they?” asks Rainbow Dash.

Pinkie Pie puts her hoof to her mouth and slumps to the ground. She can picture Rainbow Dash going defensive with how pegasi expand their wings to make themselves look bigger. Some thunder rolls in the distance and the dark clouds become dangerous storm clouds, overtaking the cotton candy and blanketing her world in gray.

“Dashie, please don’t do anything stupid,” begs Pinkie Pie.

“They are with me, and you need to come with us immediately,” says Major Fuller.

“I’m not leaving Pinkie’s side,” growls Rainbow Dash.

“Airmare Dash, I suggest you report back to base with me right now or you will face more charges,” says Fuller.

There is a pregnant silence, and the gray clouds start taking over and the chocolate rain turns into icy cold water droplets that freeze on her coat. Pinkie Pie jumps up and down, waving her hooves, trying to get their attention.

“Dashie, just go! I’ll be fine!” yells Pinkie Pie over the rolling thunder and pouring, hoping and praying that something will happen outside to get their attention.

“Do you really want to throw away all that you worked for, for a seat by a vegetable?” says Major Fuller.

Pinkie Pie hears Rainbow Dash scream and there is a lot of commotion that she can only guess is fighting, judging from the yelling and sounds of stuff falling to the ground. She then hears an order for the guards to hold Rainbow Dash down and when the turmoil ends there are multiple ponies breathing heavily and her friend is sobbing.

“She’s not a vegetable! She’s my friend!” cries Rainbow Dash. “I thought somepony like you would understand the values of friendship!”

Another moment of silence.

“You know nothing of friendship. Get her out of here,” orders Major Fuller.

“Pinkie, I’ll always be your friend! No matter what!” yells Rainbow Dash over the other ponies yelling at her to shut up.

Then the door clicks shut, the freezing rain turns into a freezing sprinkle, and all Pinkie Pie can hear are the beeps, clicks, and whirs of the hospital machines working to keep her alive. Each time the machines make a noise a ball of color explodes in the sky. A couple of seconds later, she hears and feels Major Fuller’s warm breath. The feeling part creeps her out to no end.

“Hey, buddy, can I get some personal space? Jeeze,” says Pinkie Pie while inching back from, and trying to push away, the invisible foe.

“I pity you, Pinkamena,” says Major Fuller. “The Higher Powers chose you to bear a great burden with no reward, but at least you saw the truth of friendship, which is something I cannot say about your other acquaintances. I hope you hold fast to the truth and do no let go of it, because I promise you, the moment you forget that friendship is the greatest lie there is, it is the moment that what is left of you will rot away into the nothingness. Take my word for it. There is nothing left of me because of my foolishness.”

Pinkie Pie feels an invisible hoof rest on her shoulder.

“If you ever wake up, I hope you will remember the truth,” says Fuller. He then pats her shoulder gently. “Sleep tight, Laughter.”