"Annika, was another party really necessary?" Cassandra asked one evening, propping her hooves up on her love seat that always seemed to appear for her when most convenient.
"Duh!" exclaimed Annika, noisily licking the frosting off her slice of cake. "That thing in Canterlot doesn't count—it was too formal and stuff. We can officially call this one a 'We Kicked the Stuffing out of Thunder-Karlsson Party!'"
"Ugh, how crude," Cassandra groaned, taking a dainty bite of cake before levitating a napkin to wipe the corners of her mouth.
"But Annika, I'm so tired," Anna said softly, "And I haven't had time to check up on all my animals since Thunder-Karlsson was defeated."
"Lighten up, they can take care of themselves," Tommy said, nudging Cassandra's rear legs off the love seat and perching herself on the end, sighing. "I like this. Just the six of us—makes it more comfortable, more personal, makes it—"
"Twenty percent cooler?" Anna suggested with a small smile.
"Finally!" Tommy cried out, gesturing triumphantly to Anna, "Some girl who gets me!"
"But there's one thing I still don't get…" Annika trailed off thoughtfully.
"No, we're not reviving Thunder-Karlsson just so you can have the chocolate rain back," Cassandra said sternly, kicking Tommy over a bit to make room for her rear legs again.
"Not that—although I was thinking about it," Annika giggled. "I mean why are we having this party in Pippi's library and not at Sugar Cube Corner? The Cakes wouldn't have minded if we stayed over for a few hours."
"Because I said so," Willie piped up after a very long silence. The four children turned to look at her, taken aback by the fact that her normally warm and pleasant freckled face was hard and stern.
"And your reason being?" Tommy asked, narrowing her gaze at Willie. Before the southern earth girl could respond, a cheerful voice sang from the kitchen doorway.
"Chips with daisy and garlic dip, coming right up!" They whirled around as Pippi Longstocking sailed into the room, carrying a tray of snack foods on her back.
"Oh Pippi, I really couldn't eat another bite—" Anna began, before catching Willie's almost threatening glance out the corner of her eye. "On second thought, I'm absolutely starving, thank you."
"It's delicious!" Annika cheered, handing Pippi her now third slice of cake in exchange for the dip.
"Best dang chip dip we ever did eat—right girls?" Willie prodded, to which there were various murmurs of agreement around the room. "What'd you put in this, a little slice of heaven?"
"I…opened the carton and put it in the bowl," Pippi raised an eyebrow, glancing around the room at all the beaming faces. She was not sure exactly what was going on with her friends, but ever since they had gotten back from the celebration of Thunder-Karlsson's defeat in Canterlot, they had been…especially nice to her. Helping her fix up the library after they had all done their share in wrecking it under Thunder-Karlsson's corruption had been one thing. But praising her on high for store bought chip dip? That was a bit much.
"I'm…gonna go get some vegetables for that," Pippi forced a grin before heading back into the kitchen, shutting the door behind her. Her smile faded as quickly as she'd plastered it on. Was she really that obvious? They knew—every girl in that living room knew that she was unhappy, and Willie was the worst offender of all. She was the one who practically demanded Annika to move the party to her library, she was the one shooting nervous glances at Pippi every five seconds as if she were going to explode. She was the one whispering incoherently to the others now in the living area as Pippi pressed her ear to the door to no avail—but she knew they were talking about her.
"Spill, Willie," Tommy hissed with a glare. "What do you know?"
"Nothin' you don't know," Willie whispered. "You know Pippi ain't been right since everything with Thunder-Karlsson happened."
"Regardless, you can't force her to talk about it if she doesn't want to," Cassandra shot back in a stage whisper.
"And being extra nice to her won't get her to open up," Anna added, her normal wistful tone unchanged. "She'll just be suspicious of our actions and close herself off more than ever."
"And if there's anything Pippi's good at—besides being a know-it-all—it's closing herself off," Tommy added, tossing her empty plate over to Annika for another slice.
"Exactly, which is why we gotta coax it out of her gently," Willie explained, "And I swear to Celestia, if any of you mentions Thunder-Karlsson by name in front of her—"
"Oh for goodness sake, she's not a time bomb Willie!" Cassandra suddenly shouted, then covered her mouth with her hooves as the others silenced her with a harsh "Shh!"
"I'm tellin' y'all, Pippi is hurtin' and she don't want to worry any of us about it," Willie continued.
"Hurting from what?" Anna asked.
"I don't remember," Willie admitted, staring down at her hooves nervously shuffling the floor before looking back up at the others. "I don't remember a thing…do you?"
There was silence, so deafening any girl could hear a pin drop, as the realization hit them all like a ton of bricks. Thunder-Karlsson…he had corrupted each of them by taking their most precious attributes and reversing them completely. Instead of working together to unite the elements of harmony, they had succumbed to the chaos within their own hearts and distanced themselves. Instead of supporting the element of magic, they had deserted her.
"Instead of bein' Pippi's best friends," Willie said to the distressed group, "we were her worst enemies."
"Speaking of Pippi, where is she?" Annika asked after a long pause, turning on the record player in an attempt to lighten the mood. "I thought she was going to get more food."
"That was ten minutes ago," Willie said concernedly, rushing towards the kitchen door as if she were going to ram it open with her head. "I'll go check—"
"There's no need," came a soft voice as the door swung open, and Willie found herself face to face with Pippi.
"I, uh—I thought you were gettin' the veggies," Willie said nervously, beads of sweat appearing on her brow.
"We're out," Pippi said curtly, before her expression softened into one of pain as she looked around at the children she thought were always honest with her—the friends that, until two seconds ago, had been talking behind her back. "Willie, what is going on?"
For a moment, the two just stared at eachother, studying the true feelings behind the mask each was hiding behind. There was sadness in Willie's smile, just as there was in Pippi's eyes—a sadness that had been present since the battle with chaos—a sadness that was not going to go away by dancing around the issue that would only widen the rift the longer they ignored it.
"Annika, turn that music off," Willie finally sighed.
"But I—"
"I said turn it off!" Willie cried, and Annika hastily grabbed for the needle on the record player and jerked it aside with a loud scratch. She closed her eyes for a moment—now that she was forced to face the matter at hand, she had to choose her words carefully.
"Pippi…I think we're the ones…that oughta be askin' you what's goin' on."
"What do you mean me?" Pippi inquired confrontationally, stepping closer to Willie as she took a step back in turn. "Ever since I left the room, you've all been out here whispering about me, haven't you?"
"Drop the act, Pippi, we know you're upset," Tommy said, getting up from her seat.
"You have been ever since we wielded the elements of harmony once more," Cassandra added.
"But we didn't want to say anything about it and make you more upset," Anna said guiltily, hiding her face in her mane. "We're so sorry…"
"I ain't sorry 'bout nothin'!" Willie exclaimed at them over her shoulder before rounding back on Pippi. "I may be the worst liar in Equestria, but as far I know, you come in a close second."
"There's nothing to discuss," Pippi looked away, trying to move aside, but Willie blocked her at every turn.
"It's about what Thunder-Karlsson did to us, isn't it?"
"Anna!" Annika cried out as the others gasped.
"Some girl had to say it," Anna said firmly, planting her hooves in the ground, "and I couldn't stand it any longer."
At the mention of Thunder-Karlsson's name, all the anger drained from Pippi's face in one fell swoop. All the memories she had tried to bottle up within her resurfaced once again. Not the memories of love and friendship she had used to bring her friends back to her, but the ones that embodied her greatest fears. Willie, a compulsive liar…Annika with no trace of laughter in her eyes…Cassandra's greed, Anna's cruelty, Tommy—
"No," Pippi finally spoke up, shaking her head clear. "I've forgiven all of you, you know that."
"But we haven't forgiven ourselves," Cassandra said, hanging her head in anguish.
"We blacked out, Pippi," Willie reminded her. "Whatever we might have said or done to you, we don't remember it." She paused, looking directly into Pippi's pained eyes. "We're all here for you…so now's your chance to tell us."
"Lay it on us," Tommy nodded. "We deserve to really hear it from you."
"Please, Pippi," Anna said, moving beside her, "you'll feel so much better once you get it all out in the open."
It was the eternal sweet kindness in Anna's voice that broke down Pippi's final barriers around her heart. She couldn't tell them about all the pain they had caused her. She didn't want to. But she had to. For her own sake, for the sake of keeping their friendship alive, she had to tell them the truth.
"I…I…" Pippi looked up at them, her vision slowly becoming blurry. "I hated you."
Hated…the word that pierced each of them through the heart—yet none of them back down, none ran from the room. All eyes were on her, so she went on, "I hated…every single one of you."
"M-maybe we shouldn't do this," Annika said sadly, watching Pippi's eyes well up, but Cassandra placed a hoof over her mouth gently.
"Before I came here, before I met you all, I had never trusted anyone outside of the Princess or my own family," Pippi continued as they all moved closer to her. "Once I realized you all cared about me, and that I cared about you in turn, I knew I could share my feelings with you and embrace you as my friends. Thunder-Karlsson knew that, and he did everything he could to manipulate that trust within me—to destroy it completely. And it worked."
Everything came tumbling out now—every feeling of doubt, fear, regret, anger, betrayal she had been hiding for several days as she turned now to each of them in turn:
"I hated the Annika that never saw the light side of any situation." Annika bit her lip to keep it from trembling as Pippi turned to Cassandra, "I never wanted to know the Cassandra who would put her own selfish needs before her friends. Or the Anna—" She swallowed hard when she saw the yellow pegasus on the verge of tears "—who spoke words that cut deeper than any physical pain could. And…" Her voice broke as the tears began to fall freely.
"Go on, Pippi," Willie said soothingly, wrapping her foreleg around Pippi.
"R-Tommy—who left me when I needed her more than ever," Pippi choked out. "For the first time in my life, I cared about the fact that I was alone. And—and even though you're all back and safe, I can't shake the thought that I'll always feel alone, as long as there is this chance that any of you could leave me. If that ever happened, I—I couldn't—!" She was already in Tommy's tight embrace when she broke down, sobbing into her multicolored mane as Willie rubbed her back from behind.
"I'm sorry…" Tommy said quietly, letting the normally composed unicorn cry it out on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Pippi. I'm not gonna leave you, I promise." She fought back the lump in her own throat, looking around at the others to let them know she meant this as much to them as she did to Pippi. "Not again."
"Darling," Cassandra soothed, brushing Pippi's mane back from her eyes as she raised her head, "I know—I know I can be vain and self-absorbed. But I would give up my very own cutie mark without any hesitation if it meant remaining your best friend."
"Me too," Annika added. "Parties aren't any fun if all your friends aren't happy along with you."
Pippi sniffled, leaning against Willie's mane, "I shouldn't have said anything, I—I've brought the whole party down."
"Oh no, Pippi, it's okay," Anna said. "There's no excuse for me being unkind to you, to any girl." She nuzzled Pippi's cheek, drying her tears. "I'm the one who should apologize."
"We all should," Willie said with a trace of shame in her voice. "Even though it isn't technically our fault—we're still sorry."
"Next time, it's gonna be all of us together," Tommy said determinedly, "no matter what it takes."
"Girls…I don't know what to say, except…" Pippi smiled around at them, her tears now those of happiness, "I'm truly lucky to know you all."
"Can we do a group hug now?!" Annika exclaimed, bouncing up and down excitedly, and Pippi laughed as every girl practically smothered her on all sides, feeling that special connection between them ignited. That spark that had always been there, that the spirit of chaos had nearly snuffed out, was now stronger than ever. And while Pippi learned that it wasn't always easy admitting your deepest fears and your darkest feelings to the people who care about you, in the end it was completely worth it.
"Alright Annika, crank up the music so we can restart this party!" Willie laughed as Annika bounced over to the record player. "You comin', Pippi?"
"Um…" Pippi bit her lip, debating whether or not to wake Spike and have him take down what she had learned that night to send to Princess Celestia. In the end, she decided it could wait until tomorrow. "Yeah, I'm coming."
Passing by the snack table, Pippi levitated a potato chip into the daisy and garlic dip bowl and popped it into her mouth. The others were right—it was really good.