Little House on the Quarry (ED)

Little House on the Quarry

   Clyde turned the large quartz stone over with his hoof.  He sighed heavily at what he saw, and wiped at his sweating brow.  Pyrite inclusions.  They were all over the bottom of the stone.  He spat in anger and frustration.  This stone would have to be put down.

   Clyde only hoped the inclusions hadn’t spread to the other rocks.  There was only one solution for that.  A culling.  They would have to dig a big pit in the quarry, move all the rocks into it, and block up the exit so they couldn’t escape.  Then they would have to stand at the rim of the quarry and have all of the rocks shot.

   It wasn’t a pretty sight.  He’d seen it once as a colt, and he never wanted to see it again.  It was just too emotionally devastating.  He didn’t know how bad things would get for his family.  His family... Well... Things were already bad enough as they were.

   Clyde turned to head back to the house.  It was getting late.  The sun was going down in the gray sky.  The leaves had long since fallen from the trees and turned to dust, leaving only gnarled brown trunks.  The clouds were overcast in various shades of gray, ranging from a bleached bone white to a dark bruised color, almost blue-black.  The clouds spoke of rain.

   No sooner had he given it thought than the rain began to fall.  It was only a light drizzle, not even a proper rain.  It only turned everything a darker shade of gray.

   His wife, Sue, appeared on the front porch.  She meant to ring the triangle that hung there and call him in for supper.  She saw he was already coming, so she turned back inside.  There was no use in ringing the triangle if he was already on his way.

   “Papa,” she said as he came into the kitchen and washed his hooves in the wash basin.

  “Mama” he replied, then sat down at the dining table.

   “Hello, Papa,” Inkamena said.

   “Hello, Papa,” Blinkamena said.

   Clyde looked at the empty plate.  He looked at all the bowls and platters that Sue was bringing in from the kitchen.  He looked at his youngest daughter.  Then his next youngest daughter.  Then at the chair at the other end of the table, where his wife was just sitting down now.  Then he looked at the chair on his right.  It, like his plate, was empty.  He sighed again.

   “Pinkamena!” his wife called out in their little clapboard house.  It hurt his ears when she yelled like that.  It hurt his ears every time that mare opened her mouth.

   He heard her coming out from her room.  It was the same small room she shared with her Sisters.  She sat herself up at the table, next to her father.  He smiled at her.  She looked down at her own plate.  His smile dropped.

   “Pinkamena,” her mother scolded her.  “You say hello to your father.  He’s been out in the fields all day, and we haven’t seen him since breakfast.”

   Pinkamena said nothing.

   “Pinkamena!” Her mother raised her shrill voice.

   “Mama,” Clyde said, raising a hoof into the air.  “It’s alright.”  If Pinkamena didn’t want to say hello to her father, there was no sense in raising commotion.  It might only make matters worse, and Clyde wouldn’t have any of that at the dinner table.  Sue squirmed in her seat.  She was furious that she was being forced to allow bad manners at the dinner table.  Clyde knew she wouldn’t say anything else about it though.  She knew better than to talk back to him.

   Clyde began to load up his plate with dinner.  There was a pile of starchy mashed potatoes, freckled with little brown pieces of potato skin.  A slice of rye bread, dark as night.  A helping of black beans.  A helping of wild rice, black and gray.  And a cup full of coffee, with cream, from the pot he had put on before he left that morning.

   The ponies ate their supper in silence, just like they did every evening.  First one Sister, then the other, finished her meal.  They looked up at their father, asking to be excused without actually saying anthing.  He nodded, and they went outside to finish the last of their chores before bed.  Pinkamena finished her meal, and kept staring at her plate.  Her father looked at her.  She didn’t return the glance until he had been staring at her for a long time.  He nodded once she had looked up at him with her big, blue eyes.  She got up from the table and went back to her bedroom.

   Clyde pushed his plate away when he was done with it.  He took out his book and began to read it.  Sue cleared the table and did the dishes.  The Sisters came back in and went to bed.  Later, Clyde got up and sat down in the living room.  Sue came in and resumed her knitting.  Neither of them spoke to each other.  Neither of them did so much as establish eye contact.  The lightning bugs that powered their lantern had been dying.  There were only a few left now.

   Another little light went out.  It grew even dimmer in the little room.  Sue put down her knitting, got up, and went to bed.  Clyde watched her go.  He almost followed her.  Instead, he kept reading his book.  It was another hour or two before he realized he was starting to nod off and it was useless to try to read anymore.

  He got up and went to bed.  The old springs squeaked as he laid himself down in it, the same way that he had for years upon years now.  He rolled over to his side.  Clyde could see the silhouetted outline of his wife in the faint moonlight.  He stared at that outline for a long time.  Slowly, he reached out with his hoof and felt her shoulder.  She cringed at the touch.  Clyde withdrew his hoof.

  He laid there and waited, without saying a word.  One hour passed, perhaps two.  Sue began to softly snore as she finally fell asleep.  Clyde rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.  He waited awhile longer, until he was sure she was sound asleep.  He hesitated before getting up.  He always hesitated.  He thought that maybe he would change his mind.  That never happened.  Hesitating only made it harder.

  He stood up.  Found his way through his room in the dark.  Then he was out in the hallway.  Clyde pushed open the door of the bedroom where his fillies slept.  The hinge squeaked slightly.  He would have to oil it again in the morning.  There were two quiet snores coming from the bedroom.  That would be Inkamena and Blinkamena.  They always slept.  Pinkamena herself didn’t sleep much.

  He crept into their room.  Once he had stepped on a toy and had almost woken the whole house.  He didn’t allow toys anymore.  They shouldn’t have been left out on the floor anyway.

  Clyde laid down on top of Pinkamena’s bed.  On top of Pinkamena, actually.  There was only a little noise as the bed settled.  It was a new bed that he had bought just recently.  He looked over, reflexively, at the bunk beds that held the Sisters.  Neither had woken up this time.  That was good.  Now he could go about his business.

  Clyde pulled the blankets out from underneath his large body.  He pressed himself down onto her small body.  She was laying on her back this time.  That was good too.  He liked to look into her face while he did it.  She had those big, blue watery eyes.  How he loved those blue eyes.

He couldn’t see them very well in the dark.  It was winter now, and the sun went down earlier.  Summers were better.  In the summer, everybody went to bed while the sun was still up.  Then he could see her better.

Clyde reached down and fumbled with his penis.  He placed it up against her soft little body and pressed it in.  She was dry at first.  It was hard and slow work.  Eventually she started to relax and get wet.  She was a good filly, Clyde thought.  She loved her Papa.  That’s why he bought her nice things, like this new bed.  She just laid there while he went about his business.  That was good.  She used to struggle, but now she understood better as she was getting bigger.

He shoved and flopped and shifted on top of her.  He tried to stifle his grunts, no matter how excited he got.  He was breathing heavily through his nose, and blowing at Pinkamena with his hot breath every time he exhaled.  Clyde hoped she didn’t mind.  If she did, she had never complained once.

Sometimes it took him awhile to finish.  This was one of those nights.  So Clyde closed his eyes and thought about her beautiful pink coat.  He imagined a world filled with pink.  And above it was a sky as blue as her eyes.  There was no black.  There was no white or gray or brown.  Just color.  He wasn’t the sort who gave a lot of merit to imagination and dreaming, but it was enough to do the job.

He shot his seed inside of her.  That was alright.  She was still a year or two away from foaling age.  So inside of her was as good a place for it as anywhere else.  Clyde laid on top of her for a stretch, tired, and not feeling any need to hurry back to his own bed.

Clyde looked down at her.  He could just see the very slightest hint of pink through the gloom. He licked her.  He licked her entire face, from below her chin, up her cheek, and up to her ear.  Over and over.  She scrunched up her face in a grimace for some reason.  Perhaps it was tickling her, and she was about to sneeze.  Clyde didn’t want that.  Too much noise.

Clyde, his work here finished, pulled his penis out of Pinkamena, got up off of her, and went back to his own bed.  Pinkie laid in hers and trembled.

The sisters woke up at the crack of dawn.  They noticed that Pinkamena’s bed was empty.  She had already gotten up to wash her sheets.  Again.

Pinkamena watched as the Sisters joined her outside to start their morning chores.  Half an hour later and they were all back inside again for breakfast.

They had the usual.  Porridge.  White bread toasted almost black.  Milk.

Papa came out of the washroom after Mama sat down at the table.

He kissed Inkamena on the cheek.  “Good morning, Papa,” she said.

He kissed Blinkamena on the cheek.  “Good morning, Papa,” she said.

He kissed Pinkamena on the cheek.  She said nothing.  Pinkamena only stared down at her plate.  Her father sat down at the table and began to eat his own breakfast.  The room was silent, except for the heavy ticking of the old clock on the wall, and the sound of ponies eating.  She could hear her father chewing.  She glanced over and watched as he stuffed his mouth full of porridge.

  Pinkamena felt like she was going to retch.  She pushed herself away from the table.

  “Pinkamena!” her Mama yelled.

  Pinkamena ran out the front door.

  “Pinkamena!” her mother yelled after her.  Pinkamena ignored her.  If Mama never paid any attention to her, why should she listen to Mama?  Pinkamena ran behind the house.  She tried to run behind the shed but only made it half way before she threw her breakfast up all over the ground.

  Afterwards, Pinkamena didn’t go back inside the house.  She waited, laying on the ground, for somebody to come out.  She was sure she would be in big trouble.  She was sure she would get the strap.  She didn’t.

  The Sisters came out a few minutes later, and headed out into the fields, right at the usual time.  Papa hadn’t gotten cross with her, even though her behavior had been inexcusable.  Papa would be heading out for his own work in a few minutes.  Mama would stay behind for house-keeping.  Pinkamena followed after her younger sisters.  The sun was rising higher in the sky, and there was plenty of work to do.

  They started their day’s work out in the shale fields.  That wasn’t too bad.  The stones were heavy, but they were mostly flat.  They didn’t roll back to their original position when you tried to roll them over.  The rounder granite would do that.  Granite turning would be in another month or two.  For now it was mostly shale.

Pinkamena worked long into the morning.  The air was cool, but she had worked up a sweat simply from the exertion.   A pony’s mind wanders when she spends all morning turning rocks.  Pinkamena was thinking of lunch, only an hour away.  She thought of that and a long, cool drink of water.  It was something she could really use about then.  The shale had been kicking up a lot of dust.

  She had no more thoughts about the water when she heard the screams.  Her head snapped towards the sound of it.  It was the Sisters.  They never screamed.  They hardly ever made a peep.  Something horrible was happening.

  Pinkamena ran.  She ran as fast as she could.  The thought of something, anything, bad happening to the Sisters filled her with dread.  It broke her heart.  Tears were streaming from her eyes as she galloped.  She didn’t even know what was wrong, except that it was bad.  The Sisters never did anything to deserve anything bad happen to them.

  The Sisters were up on their hind legs on a small boulder.  There was barely enough room for the both of them.  They were screaming over something on the ground.  Pinkamena only saw it as she drew close.  It was a snake.  Obviously the sisters had overturned a stone together and found this monster creeping underneath.  It was the biggest, fattest, angriest looking snake she had ever seen in her young life.  It was a dark green, but looked black as night to Pinkamena as it coiled around itself.  The thing was hissing and spitting at the Sisters on the rock.  Every time one of their hooves slipped a little bit, it lunged at them, and then recoiled.  It had a rattle.  This snake was a killer.

  Pinkamena didn’t know what to do.  The Sisters were screaming too loud for her to think.  Every time she tried to grab at them, the snake snapped at her.  A part of Pinkamena wanted to run away, and keep running forever.  A part of her wanted the snake to bite her, so that the Sisters could be saved.

  She was starting to scream herself.  Pinkamena never heard the thundering of hooves until they were right behind her.  Her father flashed into her field of view.  She didn’t have a chance to even think before he leapt onto the thing, crushing it and trampling it with his hooves.  It snapped at him, even after its spine was broken, but he deftly pulled each leg out of the way just in time.  It was the most frightening, wonderful thing little Pinkamena had ever seen.

  Clyde kept trampling on the thing until it was obvious to all that it was dead.  It was just a ruined, bloody, broken mess on the rocky ground.  He snorted.  The Sisters stopped screaming and started to cry.  They leapt off their rock and buried their faces in their father’s shoulders.

  “There, there,” he told them.  “You’re safe now.  It can’t hurt you no more.”  They started to dry their tears.  Pinkamena was wiping her own face.

  “We’re sorry, Papa,” the Sisters said together.  They did nearly everything together.

  “Well, now, that’s alright,” Papa said.  “You did the right thing.  Screaming and hollering brought me over, didn’t it?  That’s exactly how you’re supposed to do it.  And that’s exactly why I used to scold you for making a racket when you used to play around and make too much noise when you were younger.  Remember?  Do you understand now?”

  “Yes, Papa,” the Sisters both said.

  “Good,” Clyde said.  “Well then.  There’s no more snake to worry about.  So there’s no sense in thinking about it anymore.  So... lunch is in another hour or thereabouts.  We should return to our work and forget about all of this.  Doesn’t that sound good?”

  “Yes, Papa,” the Sisters said.

  “Good.”

  Clyde turned around on his way back to his work.  He looked into Pinkie’s eyes, briefly, then down at his own hooves.  Pinkie watched him go.  Off in the distance, Mama had come out on the porch, briefly, to see what all the fuss had been about, but now she had gone back inside.  The Sisters were already turning over more rocks, industriously, if perhaps a bit more cautiously.

Pinkamena returned to the spot she was before, and resumed her farm work.  She was used to farm work.  It was better than dealing with nasty, slimy reptiles at any rate.  She turned over stone after stone.  It was dull, tiring work, but Pinkamena consigned herself to it.  She knew she would be doing it the rest of her life.  Her mother had done it.  Her grandmother had done it.  As far back as there were stories, her family had been rock farmers.

  She toiled away.  Her mother rang the triangle for lunch, but still Pinkamena kept working out there in the field.  She wasn’t really hungry any more.  And she really didn’t want to be with her family.  She was lost in thought.

  Pinkamena thought about her father.  She loved him.  He was a hero.  He had saved the lives of the Sisters, who were more precious to her than anything.  The whole family depended upon him.  If he were to die or to leave them, the whole family would likely starve.  He was everything to them, and that was why Pinkamena was willing to let him take comfort with her body.

  Pinkamena kicked up a rock hard enough that it went flying a couple of feet into the air before spinning back down on its side.   She looked down at her leg.  It was pink.  It was the only thing that was pink.  Nothing else was pink like her.  There she was, in the middle of the vast landscape filled with grays and whites and blacks and browns.  She was the only thing with any color at all.

She hated it with every fiber of her being.  Pinkamena wished she was normal, just like everybody else.  Maybe bleach was the answer.  Maybe she could scrub out the color.  Maybe she could have it all cut off, or wrap herself in bandages or burn herself with acid.  Then she wouldn’t be colorful anymore.  Then her father wouldn’t want her anymore.  Then it would stop being her fault.

  Pinkamena looked up into the sky.  Gray upon gray.  Something needed to change.  She was going to break in half sooner or later.  This just couldn’t go on.  She prayed.  She prayed the clouds would open up and take her somewhere far away.  She just wanted it all to end.

Nothing happened.  The clouds remained the same.  They didn’t even drift on a breeze.  They wouldn’t even rain.  Pinkamena bent her head back down and went back to work.

  Mama rang the triangle for supper.   Tonight there were noodles.  Leftover mashed potatoes.  More of the rye bread.  Pinkamena wasn’t very hungry.  She only pecked at her plate.  Mama shot her a glance, but didn’t say anything.  Mama was often angry at Pinkamena.  She was often jealous too.  Both of them knew it, but neither of them said anything.

  The Sisters asked to be excused from the table once they had finished eating.  Pinkamena got up at the same time, hoping the commotion would mask the fact that she hadn’t asked permission herself.  It seemed to work.  Nobody mentioned it.  It was always better when nobody talked.  Everyone had silently agreed to that.

  Pinkamena took her dishes into the kitchen, then went to her bedroom as the Sisters went outside to finish more chores.  Pinkamena looked under her bed.  She pulled up a loose board under the floor, and pulled out a piece of newspaper.

  It was from a recent edition.  Pinkamena had found it out in the rock field.  It must have blown on the wind all the way from town.  Ponyville.  Pinkamena had never been there before.  Only Papa went, when he had to pick up some supplies.  Pinkamena only knew in what direction it lay.  Sometimes at night she could see the lights reflecting off of the low clouds, a sort of greenish yellow glow.  Mama and Papa once said it was a den of evil and wickedness.  Pinkamena wasn’t sure if she believed that anymore.  Any thing that could glow like that must be beautiful.  She looked at her newspaper.  It was only a fragment, a single page, but it was incredible.

  These ponies must live such wonderful lives that they actually spoke about it.  They even went so far as to write things down.  There was an article here about a bake sale.  There was another article about how the high school hoofball team was playing a game with a different team from a whole different town.  On the other side there was a classified section.  Ponies even used these words to talk to each other.  There were ponies asking other ponies to buy their used wagons.  There were ponies with too many baby kittens, and they were asking other ponies if they had good homes and if they could take them.  There were ponies who needed help working in their shops, and they were asking other ponies to come and help them.  There were even ponies who were lonely, and they were asking for other ponies to love them.

  Each little advert told a little story.  Pinkamena read each one, word for word, over and over.  The Sisters were coming back in.  She could hear their hooves as they came through the front door.  Pinkamena rolled the paper back up and stuffed it back under the bed before the Sisters came into the room.

  Pinkamena rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.  She waited.  The Sisters climbed into their bunk beds.  They both eventually fell asleep.  Pinkamena didn’t; she just looked at the ceiling.  With nothing else to do, she began to count of the seconds.  Seconds turned to minutes. She added a new mental column for the minutes.  Awhile later she added a column for hours.

   At six hours, eleven minutes, and thirty one seconds, the door slowly swung open.  It was silent.  Papa had oiled the hinges again.  Pinkamena rolled over in bed.  Sometimes she would lay on her back.  Sometimes he would take her from behind.  Neither was comfortable, although sometimes she was sore and the other position was less bad.

   Pinkamena held her breath as Papa climbed on top of her.  Sometimes he really pressed down on the top of her and it was hard to breathe.  He didn’t stick it in her just yet.  Sometimes it was better if it was over fast.  Clyde shifted so that his whole weight was laying down on her.  Pinkamena felt his breath on her ear.  Then he began to lick her.  Papa always licked her.  It was as if he could taste her pinkness.  She felt his tongue riding up the length of her ear, up to the tip, then back down the other side.  She felt him stick it in her ear.  His tongue was warm and wet, and very noisy.  She could easily hear every movement his tongue made as he licked at every fold and groove of the inner part of her ear.  It was a horrible sort of tickling, but she didn’t move an inch until he made her turn her face to the side.  He licked down her chin, then up her cheek.  He licked circles on her cheek.  Then he jammed his tongue between her lips.  He liked to jam it in as far as it would go, just to see how far it would reach down the back of her tongue.

   It was while his tongue was in her throat that he stuck his thing into her.  It hurt at first.  It kind of burned.  The pain slowly edged away, but she still felt the force of him driving into her.  He pumped slow, but he pumped hard.  He hurt the base of her tail; she couldn’t really lift it out of the way properly.  She started to count each thrust of his cock.  In her mind, the thrusts were unintentionally turning into seconds.  He was breathing into her ear, and the slobber was turning cold.

   At six minutes and seven seconds, he stopped, still inside of her.  That was early.  Pinkamena hoped he was done.  She wasn’t sure sometimes.

   He wasn’t.  Clyde sat up on the bed, and leaned back against the wall.  This was something new.  Pinkamena grew frightened. He made her sit up in bed.  Then she saw it.  It was the first time she had ever really seen it.  Only the outline was visible in the darkness.  It was just as big and brutal as she imagined it to be.  He placed his hooves on her head.  Then he started pulling her face towards it.  She didn’t want to.  Her neck muscles tensed.  She tried to resist.  He forced her.  She wanted to scream.  She wanted to yell out for him to stop.  Yelling would only wake the Sisters.  That would only make things worse.

   Her lips touched the tip of it.  Her lips parted across the blunt, broad head.  It went sliding into her mouth.  She could taste it.  It tasted the way she smelled sometimes.  She realized she was tasting herself.  She tasted awful.  She was awful.  This was all her fault.

  He made her shove it in until she could hardly breathe anymore.  Her cheeks felt like they were burning, her jaw was open so wide.  She wanted to cough or spit or vomit, but her mouth was too full.  He pushed her head down over and over so that it went sliding in and out.  “Suck on it,” he whispered in the dark.  So she sucked on it.  He moaned - they were stifled moans, but she could still hear them.  So could the Sisters.  He let her pull her face back, and it fell out of her mouth.  He pushed her head back down and she felt it sliding up her cheek.  He made her nose and lips bury down beneath it.  She felt his two big balls and wrinkly loose sack on her lips.  She felt him jerk his hips up and down as his cock was pressed against her face.  Papa grunted, then he shot his seed.  It landed all over her mane.  It streamed down the length of it and got on her face.

   Papa let go of her head.  Then he got up and left, closing the silent door behind him.

   Pinkamena laid back in bed.  She didn’t bother to wipe herself off.  She let it cool and dry.  She just stared up at the ceiling and resumed her count.

   At two hours and thirty one minutes, she started to cry.  A little later she fell asleep.

  The next day was much the same as before.  And the next.  The snows came.  They had to clear all that snow off of the rocks.  Sometimes Clyde wouldn’t come into her room at night.  Usually he would.

  There was a neighbor, way down at the other end of the property.  Pinkamena discovered that he had a subscription to the Sunday edition of the Ponyville paper.  Sometimes, while out in the fields, Pinkamena would sneak off to that end of the property, and the neighbor’s wife would let her take an old, worn copy.

  She would read every word, then burn it rather than be discovered.

  It took them two weeks to wrap up that winter by themselves.  Spring had come to the rest of Equestria.  Flowers were blooming.  Trees were turning green.  The blasted ground of the rock farm remained dull gray and brown.

  Pinkamena was in the field when she saw the sonic rainboom.

  Pinkamena had been ready to change, but that was the trigger.

  She set to work feverishly in the barn.  Something had been building up inside of her for the longest time, and now it was all coming out in a flood.  She wasn’t sure quite what it was at first, but she new color was the key.  If she couldn’t get rid of her own color, maybe she could bring more color into the world.

  She invited her family inside.  Her heart teetered on the edge of a precipice.  Then they liked it.  They smiled.  They didn’t hate her anymore.

  Her father came for her that night.  Pinkie had been waiting for him.  She wasn’t laying down anymore.  She was sitting at the edge of her bed.  She was ready to put up a fight if he wanted to take her again.

  He was surprised to find her sitting up, but he sat down next to her.

  “Pinkamena,” he whispered to her.  His voice was strange.  It was starting to crack.  “I...”  Clyde choked on his words.  He started to cry.  Everything had changed after the party.

  “Pinkie,” Pinkie said.

  “What?”

  “Pinkie.  That’s my name now.”

  “But your Mama and I named you Pinkamena.”

  “I don’t care anymore,” Pinkie said.  “My name is Pinkie.”  Pinkie wasn’t whispering.  Neither was Clyde anymore.  The Sisters could hear.  That didn’t matter.  The Sisters always heard, every time their father had visited their room.  They had laid there, silent, and had listened to their father rape their sister, hoping that he wouldn’t do the same to them.

  “Well,” Clyde sniffed.  “You’re getting older.  You... you can make decisions now...”  He wiped the tears off his face.  “Pinkamena.  I... I’m sorry.  I know what I’ve done to you is wrong.  I know I’ve sinned.  It’s just, your mother is frigid, and a stallion has needs, but I never really wanted to hurt you.  I...”

  “I’m leaving,” she interrupted him.

  “What?”

  “I’m leaving.  I’m getting up tomorrow morning and I’m leaving and I’m not coming back.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Ponyville,” Pinkie said.  She started to choke, but she forced the tears back down.

  “Where will you stay?”

  “In an apartment.”

  “How will you afford it.”

  “A job.  At a sweet shop.  They’re looking for a new employee.  They even wrote about it in the papers.  That’s where the apartment is.  Above the sweetshop.”

  “You... I... I forbid it.”

  “You can go to hell,” she told him.

  Yesterday that would have earned her a hoof across the face.  Now it broke Clyde’s heart.

  “Pinkie, I love you.”

  “I love you, Papa.  I forgive you.  But you’re a horrible pony.  This whole place is horrible.  I’d rather die than spend another day here.  You’re never going to stop, no matter how much you promise that you will.  And no matter how much you beg me to stay.  I won’t stay, Papa.  Not any more.  I can’t.”

  “We need you for the farm.”

  “The farm can die and rot.  I don’t care anymore.”

  “Pinkamena, I’m sorry.”

  “My name’s Pinkie.  And you can die too.”

  Those were the last words he heard her say to him.  He still sat on her bed.  He sobbed again.  At one point, he lifted a hoof and meant to put it on her.  He still had his urges.  Then he thought of a world without his little Pinkamena.  He didn’t want to live anymore.  His hoof dropped back down.

  Clyde stood up, walked out of the room, and shut the silent door behind him.

  Pinkie looked across the room.  Inkamena and Blinkamena were looking back at her, eyes big and round in the dark.  Their eyes conveyed a million different thoughts, but none of them spoke a word.  Ponies didn’t talk in this house.

  Pinkie laid down in her bed.  She closed her eyes and slept soundly.

  She woke up again, a few hours later, feeling more rested and content then she could ever remember feeling in her life.  She got up, threw on her saddlebags, and went out the front door without ever saying goodbye.

  The sun hadn’t even come up yet.  There was a soft greenish-yellow glow on the clouds on the horizon.  Pinkie headed down the drive way to the road, then turned towards the direction of that light.  Towards Ponyville.

  She passed the farm on the other side of the fence.  She had never seen it from this side of the fence before.  Then, before she knew it, she was past the farm completely.  She had never been so far in her life.  Then she was past the neighbors and their farm.

  Pinkie’s walking sped up into a trot.  There was another glow on the horizon, this from the sun.  As the morning wore on, as Pinkie grew closer to Ponyville, her spirits began to lift.  Her trot quickened into a prance.  Then, for no other reason than because she could, Pinkie began to hop.

  The sunrise was filled with a million different colors.