The End Crowns the Work
The Sun was setting amid the orange sky as the conflict gradually died down, nothing replacing it save for an eerie silence, punctuated occasionally by the gasps and gurgles of the wounded and dying.
Applejack tortuously shimmied up the hill, groaning and moaning all the while, every little inch of her battered body afire and hurting. Still the orange mare persisted, anchoring her chipped and bloody hooves on the nearby rocks dragging herself upwards yet another few yards, the scrape-scrape of the deadly saber furrowing the earth, a thin red trickle proceeding to fill it. Applejack could feel it: she was slowing down, her movements more and more erratic, weaker, growing weaker…
But had she made it, her hoof impotently swishing against thin air. The mare had crested.
Applejack gained no pleasure from this accomplishment. Exhausted, it was all she could do to roll over onto her back, head resting against the ridge, tongue lolling, eyes glazed over. She had gotten up here for what? She couldn't really remember.
Her blurry and dying vision revealed very little to the country mare. Some dark and some patches of orange: that was about all she could make out in the evening light. The ground below her was mostly shades of dark. Mostly motionless, some twitching, a few dots hobbling away into the horizon. Lucky them.
Applejack remained on the hilltop, slowly awaiting the darkness that would soon encompass her, the eternal night-
Eternal Night! Applejack’s slowing heartbeat jolted into life a few times at the thought. Oh, the night! The darkness! The ponies in her dreams, chasing her remorselessly, hot on her hooves, cursing her over and over again as they did so.
Except, this time, it would be forever…
“Applejack,” Twilight Sparkle interrupted.
Time abruptly stopped. Applejack rolling her head sideways, the breaths in her body growing shallower and shallower, the pain rising in her abdomen once more. She was here already? That couldn’t be – Applejack wasn’t asleep yet – it wasn’t possible!
“Applejack,” Rarity joined in.
The rustic pony instinctively looked back up with terrified eyes, almost not daring to open them- but there they were, shadowed against the emerging stars: the lavender unicorn, the white fashionista, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy!
The farm pony’s breath cut out. “I- “
Her instinctive reaction, honed by weeks and weeks of mental anguish, was caught abruptly in her throat. Something was different here. These ponies looked normal.
Applejack gulped. “All of you... you’re here.”
“Well, duh!” Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes. Her bouncy hair and cheerful complexion were things the orange pony had nearly forgotten.
Applejack gulped again. “But… “
“Darling, whatever’s the matter?” Rarity asked, fabulous and cheerful as ever.
Applejack let out a trembling wheeze.
Twilight Sparkle giggled at the pony’s reticence. “Oh Applejack: we’re your friends, right? We’ll keep what you say secret, honest!”
“B-but… ” Applejack coughed fitfully, not daring to believe the ponies in front of her, so effectively melting away any last vestiges of pride- “…but you’re all d-dead! Y-y’all can’t still be alive!”
Fluttershy cocked her head uncomprehendingly. “But we’re here, Applejack.”
“No. No!” Applejack slammed her hooves onto the ground, her heart giving out from a mixture of anger and sorrow. “You don’t understand! I… ”
They were my friends… and I… and I-
Oh, by Celestia: what have I done?
The orange pony burst into tears. “I’m sorry!” she bawled, body shuddering with untold effort. “I’m sorry; oh, I’m so very, very sorry!...”
A comforting hoof on her shoulder. “Applejack,” Twilight soothed. “It’s okay.”
The country mare shook her head vigorously. “No. You don’t understand!” she burbled. “It was my fault. All my fault. You were always my friends... I should've never- “
“Oh don’t cry, Applejack!” the party pony exclaimed. “You’ll make us all sad! And I don’t like being sad!”
The pony couldn’t take it anymore. “No! Please!” she cried and cried. “Stop! Stop. It!”
“Darling,” Rarity knelt next to the dying pony, the scent of her perfume wafting through the crisp air. “Do stop being so hysterical. All that’s in the past now.”
“We forgive you,” Fluttershy added quietly.
Applejack continued twisting and convulsing like a madpony. No. This was too much. Too much. She didn’t deserve their forgiveness. This pony, who had so brazenly cast all of her friendships to the flames; this pony, who had schemed and plotted beyond all moral qualms; this pony, who had just sent hundreds upon hundreds to their graves… no. This wasn’t possible. How could these stains be wiped away – ever be wiped away- ?
“You can, Applejack, you can!” Twilight encouraged her onwards, just as she had done so many times, back in the Old Place, the others behind her, cheering Applejack on, cheering Applejack ever on-
Wait. Twilight. Rarity. Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy. Weren’t there six of us?
Twilight… Rarity… Pinkie-
Suddenly in one impulse, Applejack violently thrust herself off the ground with shuddering hooves, the world around her clothed in impenetrable darkness, her head spinning around with the effort, her breaths, her heart- Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash was still alive!
“Rainbow Dash!” Applejack screamed forth with her last bit of life, quavering pleas soaring off into the far horizon. “Rainbow Dash! Rainbow… Dash! R…r… ain...bow…”
Dashie… so, so sorry…
*
A light drizzle pitter-pattered down as Fluttershy climbed out and surveyed her work. Physical exertion had never been the pegasus’ strength – her limbs ached from the toil, her mane matted with sweat – but it was worth every second, worth every second just to be here.
The day the news had reached Ponyville, Fluttershy had immediately fled for the horrible scene, bawling and crying every step of the way. The stench was already unbearable even at the horizon, the actual debris even less so: putrid corpses and half-ingested innards, strewn all over the blood-red arena like some savage sacrifice, stinking and decaying under the vicious Sun. The pegasus wandered around the abandoned fields, despondently calling for anypony who was still alive.
Now the third day was nearly at an end, and Fluttershy was standing alone on the hilltop, two makeshift graves in front of her.
“A-Applejack,” she announced to nopony in particular.
Solemnly, she picked up a familiar old Stetson – all she could find of the orange mare. She had earlier caught a glimpse of a red-and-black thing some ways down, but seeing that it was distinctly mangled even from Fluttershy’s viewpoint, the yellow mare wasn’t sure she really wanted to know if that was Applejack.
She gently cast the hat into the shallow grave, where it landed with a small thump.
Now the other pony. There was nothing remaining of the cyan pegasus. The yellow mare rummaged around in her bags for something fitting.
“Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy murmured. A light-blue daisy floated slowly into position.
It only took a few more nudges to fill in the earth. So that was that.
Fluttershy put down the shovel and resumed her vigil before the two graves: standing, thinking.
She really ought to cry. These were her friends after all, and she had cried earlier when she had taken flight for this dreadful place.
But really, it was best that Fluttershy didn’t cry.
After all, murderers don’t cry for their victims.
It was she who started this. She who was too weak, too useless to govern her own county; she too scared to continue on when everypony else was begging her to stay; she who abandoned her friends in their time of need, flying away while Twilight and Rarity and Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash and Applejack killed each other…
There could really be no mercy for so heinous a crime.
“And Fluttershy,” the yellow pony whispered bitterly, drawing out a box of poison hemlock.
*
Princess Celestia stepped off the carriage onto the hilltop, slowly surveying the scene like a hawk. Reclamation had already begun, visible in the green shoots poking between parched bones, audible in the chirps and calls of returning fauna, sensible in the light whiff of lavender coasting ever-so-slightly upon the sharp tang of sagebrush.
A few generations, and nopony would ever remember this place existed.
A dwarfish pony followed the Goddess, black from head to hoof. The Changeling Ambassador viewed the scene equally mournfully. “So much killing,” he commented pensively. “Reminds me of our past conflict, my Lady.”
The alicorn shook her head in pained resignation. “Hate springs eternal. Few have yet learnt how to master it.”
A sudden crack prompted the Princess to glance sideways. Her bodyguards had happened upon and were gingerly dissembling a skeleton, hoping to prepare the bones for burial.
The Princess stretched out a hoof in command. “Stop. Leave the dead be. This is a memorial to those who have lived and died in these lands – the lesson of war.”
The soldiers halted their morbid work.
Celestia looked over the crest and at the distant desert landscapes of the Outer Lands. Her millennial visage betrayed no emotion.
The Ambassador thought it was probably time to say something. “My Liege. Your recalcitrant vassals, the Changelings, do offer our sincerest apologies- “
“Your kind did not cause this,” the Princess acknowledged. “In fact, this sorry episode has shown that the ponies clearly remain unworthy of occupying such territory. The Princess Luna and I shall therefore cede the Outer Lands back to the Changelings; a sign of our penitence.”
The Changeling started for a moment, hastily prostrating himself on the ground, hooves scattering dirt and dust over his body. “We are not worthy of such a gift from Your Majesty!” he groveled.
“Not so, Ambassador,” the Princess consoled. “The rulers who ruled this land: they were too arrogant, too fearful, too complacent in the belief that their friendship would hold with no additional effort. I need to try again, Ambassador; try until I find somepony worthy.”
The Ambassador gazed into his liege-Princess’ tender eyes, his own welling forth with unspoken gratitude.
The Princess, ever so graceful, leant in closer, smiled, and her eyes glinted.
The Elements of Harmony would soon be carted back to Canterlot.
“Besides… these lands have served their purpose.”
~END~