Twilight stood before the headstone, her gaze never straying from it. Clouds overhead darkened the already-dim light of dusk, making it harder to see that usual, but the glow from her horn rendered this issue a null value. A pattering of rain gently assaulted the ground around her, beginning to run in tiny streams by her hooves. But the weary alicorn paid the scenery no attention, for it deserved none.
Tirelessly scanning the surface back and forth, her eyes examined the writing that was inscribed in it, clear and bold. The words that she herself had carved in them, almost twelve years before this moment.
Here lies Fluttershy, The Element of Kindness.
~ Cared not for herself, but for all others
Loved all that she knew; and them, her
We will always miss you ~
Only herself, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie were in attendance. Applejack was still looking after her family in Fillydelphia, and could not make it; her absence was excused, though Rainbow was rather angry that she had not been there.
Rainbow Dash had, perhaps, been the worst affected by her death. Where Twilight felt hollow shock and crippling loss upon hearing that her malnourished body had been found in her bed, Dash was absolutely livid. She had refused to accept that her friend had passed on. Even at the funeral, Rainbow Dash acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary, perhaps simply waiting for Fluttershy to open up the casket and timidly ask why everyone was so sad. But when this did not occur, and Twilight lowered the casket into the hole...
The alicorn winced, as if feeling that she had been hit in the same place that Rainbow had hit her during that time. It may have no longer hurt, but the sensation had imprinted in her memory quite harshly. Broke a couple of ribs, she recalled; Twilight at least had to compliment the strength of her kick. Biting her lip, she pushed the event from her mind, trying her best not to remember Rainbow's face of hopeless anger and despair as the full weight of their loss had come crashing down upon her perfect world.
At any other time, earlier than now, she would have cried. Twilight would have forsaken all ties with dignity and let loose with the waterworks; lying there for hours on end, begging her long-gone friend to come back to her. But long since have her tears dried up, and she had no more to spare for her.
For anypony.
Fluttershy was but a pony, as much as Twilight hated to objectify her. Only a pony. No more a pony than she, or Applejack, Rainbow Dash, or any other pony in Equestria was. She had feelings, ideas, and dreams. So did everypony else. She was a living, thinking, feeling, marvel of life. And again, so was everypony else.
The alicorn looked up, and past the apex of the grassy hill where she and her friends had once watched many an amazing meteor shower on. The town of Ponyville, a ways off in the distance. Now normally coated in snow and ice, from the climate that had changed so harshly, though she now visited during the warmest time of the year, where the temperature and weather patterns were somewhat reasonable.
Almost all of Ponyville's original residents had either passed away from the Sick, starved from the famine, or simply moved away. None but the hardiest of Scandeneighvian ponies lived around this area anymore. The cold seasons were far too long for agriculture to even be possible anymore. Instead, the ponies living here had taken up hunting in the Everfree Forest to procure food; a dangerous and disgusting practice, to Twilight.
When desperate, any creature will do whatever it takes to survive.
Her mentor's words. Old now, they seemed. But in the Equestria she once loved, it was as real and present as the clouds in the sky or the grass on the ground. Or the rain that was still falling, ever gently, on her head. Now both princesses were gone. Celestia and Luna both, vanished. She knew what had happened to them, and what they had done. It was why the sun and moon still rose and fell as normal. She knew, and she would soon tell, as it was her final promise to the goddess of the sun: To tell the truth.
On the last day that she and Celestia had seen each other, the state of the land was utter madness. The riots had grown in intensity, mostly over the matter of food and sustenance. But also, as Twilight soon discovered, over a widely-spreading plague as well; the Sick. Most ponies that caught the Sick died within hours. Some speculated that it was not a simple illness, but a deliberate attempt by a subversive element to thin the population via a magical bioweapon. If this theory was so, then it worked far too well.
Twilight had arrived in Ponyville mere minutes after leaving Canterlot. Even then, she was already too late for two more of her friends; they had contracted the Sick, and were dead by the time she had arrived there. The alicorn gazed out to the empty, dead fields where Sweet Apple Acres used to be. It was a mass grave, now. Hundreds of ponies were buried in a series of massive holes that could fit a dozen or so ponies each. And two of her friends were among them.
Her Elements of Laughter and Generosity, gone from this world before their time.
She had left town as soon as she discovered their fate, leaving their remains to be rounded-up and buried. An action Twilight had come to regret, as she no longer truly knew where her friends had gone. Lost under the ground, with none but strangers and acquaintances buried with them. She snorted at the thought of Pinkie hosting a party in the afterlife; that was the best she could hope for, at least. Both her, and Rarity--they were in a better place, now.
But it still hurt. Deep inside, the pain would not wither.
She heard the flapping of wings approach from behind. Her own wings bristled at the sound, and they snapped to attention, her instincts fearing trouble. But the voice that accompanied it swiftly quelled her worries.
"Hey, egghead. I know you're real upset, and need a moment and all, but... it's been three hours. They'll be worried about us."
Rainbow Dash was getting impatient, it seemed. The alicorn sighed, and nodded in response. Everyone was waiting back in New Harmony; the town that was built just west of Old Fillydelphia. Applejack, Spike, and the others. She was going to miss a wedding ceremony for one of Apple Bloom's friends, if Twilight was not mistaken. Now that things had settled down, life was only just beginning to revert to normal. Or at least, what could be considered the new normal for what remained of Equestria...
Twilight lowered her head, and turned away from the headstone. Now was the time to move on. With only the slightest and barely noticeable catch in her voice, she softly spoke, "Goodbye, Fluttershy. Pinkie Pie. Rarity. Keep each other company while I'm gone. We'll..." She swallowed deeply. "We'll hang out again some other time."
Without looking back, she took off from the ground and into the sky, joining her friend in the air. Feeling not sadness, but resolution, she soared into the distant horizon, and on with her life.