//------------------------------//
// Epilogue: No Other Like Her 
// Story: The Last Day of Pinkie Pie 
// by joe mother 
//------------------------------//

Maybe there would be another like her. Maybe not.

All the five could think was that they had lost a part of themselves, but not as individuals: as a collective whole. They had all cried. Even Rainbow Dash had cried, looking at the casket as it went in, promptly covered in dirt. 

All it did was prove that there was no other like her. Nopony in the wide, wide world could match the pink pony in any way. She was her own, and no one could stand against her. 

As they sat on the library balcony, looking into the sun, that was all they could think. How irreplaceable that one friend is. 

"Do you think they'll find a new bearer of the Element?" Rainbow Dash asked, her mane fluttering in the breeze. "Another laughter?"

"They might," Twilight replied, her eyes glued on the horizon.

"Nopony could ever do it like Pinkie Pie," Rarity commented.

They all shook their heads in silence. The temperature was dropping slowly, but it was only going to get mildly chilly.

"What do you think it's like?" Fluttershy asked timidly, and flinched when all eyes turned on her. "With Pinkie."

"Maybe she's with the alicorns in the Sky," Applejack said, pointing up, holding her hat in one hoof. "It's supposed to be ah nice place, I heard."

"I hope she is," Twilight said.

"One day we'll be with her, and we'll be happy too," Dash said, exhaling softly.

"Rather sage of you, Rainbow," Twilight teased, and the pegasus blushed and chuckled awkwardly.

"I don't like to think about death," the mare said. "I'm always right next to it when I do my stunts, always staring it down in a race I can never win. I want to think that when we do die, we end up happy, but I just don't know. There's so much pain here, so why should the Sky be any different?"

"Because the dead shouldn't want to cause pain for the other dead," Rarity replied, standing. "The Sky is a place for the dead, and the dead wouldn't want pain after life here."

"The animals talk about it too," Fluttershy muttered. "They think about death and where it goes. They think about the Forest, under the law of the Great Bear. They want happiness after death."

"I can understand why someone would want that," Dash said, her voice shaking softly. "But I just don't know."

Her breaths became deep and shuddering, and tears formed in her eyes.

"Why did she have to die?" she said, one rolling down her face. Her voice cracked. "She didn't deserve that, her of all ponies! She never did anything to deserve this!"

She stamped her hoof down, and the others jumped in surprise as the thud echoed in the evening quiet. The tears were pouring full out, harder and faster than they did at the funeral.

"I should have been me!" the pegasus yelled, sniffling. "I'm the worst of us, I'm the one with the ego and the hero complex and the selfishness and the worst–"

"Dash!" Twilight said, hugging her. The unicorn's example was quickly followed by the others. "I wish nopony died, but yet somepony did. We knew that it was going to happen eventually, and there's nothing we can do about it. You are no more deserving to die than Pinkie was."

Rainbow thrashed out of their circle, crouching down on the ground. She couldn't control her shaking, and she quaked as her friends watched. The tears were dripping down onto the floor, forming a puddle.

"I want Pinkie back," she said, falling onto her side. "I want my best friend back."

Maybe there would be another one like her. But in the minds of the five, there would not.