I
Shady buried Perennial Buckwheat in the blooming dawn, laying her to rest at the foot of the old oak. He clasped her pearl necklace around one of the tree’s branches.
He liked to think that wherever she was, she could still watch the sun rise over the woods around her old home.
His sister had arrived that afternoon. He’d found it hard to tell her what had happened, but he had done his best to try. He showed her the writing in the library, and the shallow grave where he’d found Perennial. He tried to explain, but he couldn’t.
Somehow, she had still understood. When she’d asked him if he needed a hug, he accepted it tearfully.
In the weeks to follow, and with Perennial’s demands still in his head even as he guiltily broke them, he attempted to track down tell of her husband. He’d visited nearly every library in Manehattan looking for records. When he’d found them, he didn’t know whether to be satisfied or disappointed.
A few years after Perennial had passed, her husband had drowned himself in the Celestial Sea. The fortune that he’d murdered her for had never been found. If it had ever existed at all.
He told the truth, to the ponies he could find who cared. Sunny, his sister, the townspeople of Sundown. It was a grim conversation to have, and a largely irrelevant one, with the rest of the world having long since allowed the Buckwheat's legends to fade into obscurity. Yet it felt important to Shady, all the same. They had to know that the mad young Buckwheat mare hadn't been mad at all, just a vulnerable mare who had needed a friend. A victim, yes, but never to herself.
There were no more hauntings at Buckwheat Manor. Shady never would have imagined he’d have missed them. Long after the house recovered from its decades of torpor, after months and years of restoration as he worked diligently to restore the house to its former beauty, he would find himself wandering the halls at night, restless and lonely.
Perhaps that was what he’d taken, from Perennial. Perhaps her burden was with him, now.
That was okay.
Wherever she was, Shady hoped she would remember him, too.
II
There was stillness all around. The air was refreshingly cool, like the last few days at the end of summer.
Grass gently brushed against Perennial’s hooves, as they took her on a leisurely walk through the vast fields that seemed to stretch to eternity behind her.
To her sides, lay forests of green and yellow and red. Tall trees rising into the bright, cloudless sky, lit by some light that felt greater than the Sun.
In front, a mare several decades Perennial’s elder stood waiting, a small, patient smile on her lips and a hoof extended. It took Perennial a moment to recognize the mare, for all the decades spent clawing the back of her mind for its image.
“Hello, Perennial,” the mare spoke softly, her voice warm and kind. She took the younger mare in her hooves, hugging her tightly.
Perennial’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes begun to water.
“Ma...”
“I’m here, sweetie. You made it.”
There was so much Perennial wanted to say, but she couldn’t think of a single word to speak. She hugged her mother tighter, sobbing silently into her haunches, her heart burning with joy.
“I... had help," she gasped out, thinking of the kindly young stallion, on the other side of the veil. “I missed you so much. All of you... I m-miss...”
“We know,” her mother said, breathless and quiet, a hoof running through Perennial’s long and silvery mane. “Everypony’s here, Perennial. Everypony’s waiting.”
They remained that way, for what seemed like an eternity, and still never enough time for Perennial. Her joyous tears tumbled to the wispy, golden grass. Her heart was full. Her soul was at peace.
Finally, she was home.