• Published 17th Oct 2011
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The End of Ponies - shortskirtsandexplosions



A lone pony of a Wasteland future Equestria finds a way to visit her dead friends in the past.

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Chapter Thirty: Everlove

The End of Ponies
by shortskirtsandexplosions

Chapter Thirty – Everlove

Special thanks to Vimbert for Editing

Extra Special Thanks to Valhalla-Studios for Cover Art

A migraine of green flames parted ways. When Harmony's eyes reopened, it was morning. The calm lengths of Fluttershy's cottage den stretched before her. For the thirteenth or fourteenth time since returning from the Everfree Forest, the future's chronotonic tug on her Entropan coat briefly dissipated, and she could breathe easier again. She rediscovered the weight of her copper hooves and anchored herself once more to the past as she stared across the way and regarded an off-ruby shade with dull emotion.

“So then...” Captain Redgale sighed more than she rejoiced, leaning against the cold hearth inside Fluttershy's living room. The aged Cloudsdalian washed the lengths of the rustic cottage with a pair of bored blue eyes. “It's alive.”

“Alive, well, ticking, and really dang ugly.” Harmony nodded. After receiving a sideways glare from Fluttershy, she nervously sweated and remarked: “As baby Capricorns go, that is. I really wouldn't want to keep one as a pet. Seriously, who'd want to put a leash on a goat-fish?”

Angel leaped down from her perch atop Fluttershy's shoulders as the Ponyvillean animal tamer demurely brushed a hoof against the green wooden finish of the floor. “Uhm... It's most assuredly healthy. You don't need to worry about the infant.” Fluttershy gazed up at the Captain with rosy cheeks that bashfully hid her inner pride. “It has enough mana from the crystal in that cave to survive for another season at least. On top of that, I'll be sure to visit it every week, Captain Redgale. I... uhm... I was quite responsible for bringing it into this world in the way that it was so hectically brought, and it's only fitting with my job description that I see to it that the Capricorn makes it back into the heavens.”

“As well as you should.” Captain Redgale nodded. Her gray-red tail hairs flicked left and right like a mechanized clock. “It boggles my mind to no end how the essence of that late mother's infant got deposited into that poor mailpony's foal to begin with!”

“What matters is that it got out, right?” Harmony smiled cheekishly. “And the kid's name is 'Dinky'—by the way. She's as fit as a fiddle, if you must know. A really smart, cute-as-the-dickens, page flippin' egghead of a fiddle.”

“Hrmmph...” Redgale pivoted and narrowed her eyes once more onto Fluttershy. “And it never occurred to you once to mention that the Capricorn was pregnant... Much less that it could still finish its foaling?”

“Uhm... I... uhm...” Fluttershy wilted under the Cloudsalian officer's stare. She bit her lip and glanced aside at Harmony.

Harmony motioned the jittery pegasus “onward” with flailing hooves.

Ahem...” Fluttershy bravely stared back at the Captain. “I did not think it was my place to question your judgment when it came to what had to be done with the terminal Capricorn. And when... uhm... when it turned out that she was foaling, and I realized that only the Everfree mana crystals could solve the situation, I took matters into my own hooves... mmm... by employing all of the many talents that I have accumulated over the years.” She gulped and stared suddenly at something firmer and richer locked away behind the officer's cold blue eyes. “I figured that it would have been the strong thing for me to have done... rather than have troubled you, Ponyville, or the Cloudsdalian Commission... uhm... since I already knew the solution to the problem myself.”

Redgale took a deep, apathetic breath. “Hmmm... Not bad, for a start.”

Harmony shook loose a fuming cloud of emerald in her head before coughing from the sidelines. “'For a start?'”

The Captain briefly tossed the “clerk” a sarcastic look, then paced across the length of the cottage's front room. “It shows initiative,” she uttered. “Enough intiative that the Commission is likely to approve of your continuance here as lead animal tamer of Ponyville.”

“Oh... Oh thank goodness!” Fluttershy giggled. A tiny yelp, and she hid once more behind a lock of pink bangs that matched her blushing coat. “I mean... that is very nice to hear, Captain Redgale, and I am most honored by the prospect of furthering my career here.”

“Don't relish it too much, Miss Fluttershy.” Redgale tilted her nose up. “It merely shows that you're competent. Nothing else. I'll be watching you closely as you tend to this Capricorn...” She gazed lethargically at a fluffy white bunny seated before the dead fireplace. “...and your other...lesser impressive subjects.” She turned away. “Just one more question, though.”

“Ask away, Captain—” Fluttershy glanced over the mare's shoulder, her eyes twitching with a sudden horror.

Harmony followed the caretaker's frantic glance. Wincing, she leaped over in time to grab a rabbit's food dish just millimeters before it would have collided heavily with the rear of Redgale's skull. The Cloudsdalian glanced over her shoulder. The last pony hid the kettle behind her back and smiled nervously.

“Ahem.” Redgale swiveled her haughty glance back towards the caretaker. “If this had not turned out as well as it did, and it had fallen upon the Commission to revoke your wildlife license...” Her blue eyes narrowed icily. “...where would you have gone, child?”

“I...” Fluttershy bit her lip. She glanced at the floor, at the ceiling, then at an invisible cloud of happy thoughts. A renewed warmth floated into her limbs, as if she was being carried kindly across this cold conversation on the copper wings of a helpful soul. “I suppose I would have gone to Rarity...”

“Gone to who?”

“Mmm... My friend. One of my many friends...” Fluttershy smiled gently. “If I had failed—I'm almost more than certain that they would have supported me. I don't know how long it would have taken, but I would very likely have been ushered into a new phase in my life.”

Harmony smiled, placing the food dish down to the floor as she waited for the officer's response.

It wasn't a warm one. “Friends...” Redgale stared at her as if she was merely a dark spot against a field of random clouds. “Mmm... Yes, I do suppose enough time has passed that even you could make some. Regardless...” With a cold swish of her tail, the Captain marched towards the door. “I expect a full written report on what has transpired these last few nights. Divulge as much as you wish to your beloved Canterlotlian Clerk. Celestia knows, she's the only exciting thing to have happened here in months, Capricorns or not.”

Fluttershy was suddenly shivering. She stared forlornly at the flank of the exiting officer. She cast one nervous glance—almost pleading—towards Harmony.

The time traveler glanced back in a sudden haze of confusion. She merely blinked at the caretaker.

As if that was all the response she needed, Fluttershy bit her lip and called after the off-ruby mare. “Uhm... Captain Redgale? Captain Redgale, if I could have a moment to talk with you... before you leave? And... uhm... I mean to really talk to you...”

“What's been said has been said, child.” The Captain pulled the front door open with a creak, bathing herself in the off-white gold of morning haze. A rusted breath muttered mechanically: “There is no more business left to conduct today.”

“Captain...” Fluttershy gulped, then leaned forward in a dripping breath. “Mother, please...”

Harmony blinked, her lips parting.

The officer had frozen in her gait. A still breath locked her in place, so that she stared blindly into the burning world outside the two of them, outside the entirety of the glacier that the cottage had become so very long ago.

Fluttershy took a daring half-step forward. “It's.. It's been so long, Mother. So very long. I... I know this isn't what you want to hear. I know that this isn't the family way, especially where I am involved, but I do so very much wish to speak to you... like mother and daughter. So much has happened lately. These past few nights—I've remembered things, and I've remembered the many gaps in things because... because they don't exist between us. So please... Please... Can we talk? If even for a few minutes? I...I just want to be your daughter again... If even for one day...”

The silence that followed could have drowned out the Cataclysm. Harmony found herself gazing helplessly from one pegasus to another. A sour pit had formed in her Entropan throat. Not even a thorny crucifixion could outlast the agony of what she was about to hear, and it horrified the last pony to realize that she had predicted it:

“I don't know why you bother,” Redgale said in a blistering breath, like a cold wind that pulled her head down into a somber bow. “I don't know why I would even bother.” She didn't look at the young pegasus; she didn't even try. A flaring of her nostrils, and she tilted her head back up to stare into the blemished, burning gold beyond. “You're a shame to me, Fluttershy. You always have been; you always will be. And so long as you stick around on this paltry patch of land you call 'home,' anchored by your fears and your weaknesses, nothing will ever change.” A heaving of her gray ruby shoulders. “I thought that if you lost your job... that if you found yourself for once without all of the pathetic little vices that keep you so far from Cloudsdale, you might for once be roused from your pitiful slumber and summon the strength to be a real pegasus like the rest of your family and fly back to where you'd be useful. But... as always. I was right. Nebula help me, I was right all along.”

The door creaked closed before either of the young pegasi standing behind could notice that the Captain had gone, or could even care. With a soulless shudder, Harmony finally wrenched her eyes away from the front of the cottage. The sight before her stabbed the survivor's quivering heart from across twenty-five years of green flame.

Fluttershy was buckling, stumbling limply into the corner, surrounded forever by her shadows. Harmony could not see her wilting face from the tosseled mane of pink threads that had ensnared her like a noose. That didn't stop the time traveler from softly padding over towards the caretaker's flank.

“Fluttershy...” She dryly murmured. “Fluttershy... I'm... I-I'm so sorry. I didn't—”

“Please...” The voice that came from the melodic ghost was a whimper, laced in sniffling breaths. “Just leave me alone. Th-That's all I ask...”

Harmony smiled painfully. “Oh Fluttershy...”

“All I-I want is to be alone... D-don't you see?” Fluttershy stumbled so that she quivered in a kneeling position on two melting legs. Her back shuddered to Harmony's vision. “Doesn't anypony see? Just... J-just let me be alone—”

“Fluttershy...” Harmony bravely stepped over and touched the pegasus' slouching shoulders from behind. “...your entire life is a terribly long time to be alone.”

The morning sunrise had formed an immutable mirror in the great wedge of time, so that it was now this pony—falling into the embrace of the copper visitor behind her—who was collapsing with a bursting dam of sobs. Harmony effortlessly cradled Fluttershy while she navigated a deep, deep well of pain, accumulated by years upon countless years of isolation and shame.

“I-I don't understand...” Fluttershy hiccuped and shivered, her face forever obscured by her mane. “I j-just don't understand!” She sobbed and sobbed, melting into Harmony's strong forelimbs. “Wh-why doesn't she love me?! Why can't she stand the s-sight of me?! I've done everything... Everything. All I w-wanted was... w-was just some kindness. Is th-that asking t-too much?! Oh dear Nebula, I'm not good enough... I'm never good enough f-for her...”

“And you never will be...” Harmony bravely breathed. “Not with the heartless likes of her. You're a kind, beautiful, angel of a pony, Fluttershy. Stop hating yourself... Stop hiding yourself from your friends. Not every mother can be as understanding—or as loving—as Mother Earth.”

“I just don't understand.... Ohhhhh Eponaaaa... Why Why Why Why Why...?”

“Shhh...” Harmony smiled painfully and nuzzled her like a lost foal. “The world is a strange and confusing place. It's okay...” She seethed and began to buckle herself, a delightfully easy thing to do, she discovered. “It's okay to cr-cry about it.”

The two lingered there in the lonesome cottage, leaning on each other like orphan crutches, a tranquil calm in the endless rainstorm of life.


“I better be heading back.” Scootaloo was sliding her helmet back over her pink mane. The bright morning Sun glowed happily off her scooter, matching the glisten that sung across every blade of grass, growing and stretching warmly into the moist morning air after a nightlong baptism. “My parents will kill me if they find out I ditched Mom's ferns for so long.”

“Somehow, I seriously doubt that.” Fluttershy smiled gently from where she stood in the doorway to her pretty little cottage. “A foal raised to be as sweet as you couldn't possibly have parents that are so violent.”

Scootaloo inhaled with a tiny smile as she gripped both handles of the scooter in relaxed, orange hooves. “I... I really enjoyed our time together, Fluttershy.”

“As did I, Scootaloo.”

“I...” Scootaloo shifted nervously from where she leaned against the flimsy vehicle, her dearest friend, or so she had thought. “I'm sorry that... that it got a little tense at times. It seems like I can never just be a guest without—”

“Let joyous memories be joyous memories, Scootaloo.” Fluttershy gave a glowing smile in the morning light. “Nothing less. You may be surprised at how far they will carry your hooves... or your wings.”

“When... Uhm...” Scootaloo bit her lip and flicked her violet tail skittishly. “When I get my cutie mark... Whenever that's going to be...” She rolled her eyes, chuckled, then looked up with a tender gaze. “I want you to be the first to see it, Fluttershy.”

“I would be flattered, Scootaloo.” Fluttershy gave a playful wink. “But I thought we each had to be alone when we found our talents.”

Scootaloo shook her head softly. She swallowed a painful lump down her throat. “Not when there are so many sweeter things to find.”

The air glistened briefly with the clearing of the sunrise's last foggy mists. Birds sang in the air; squirrels stirred and scampered across tree branches. The bosom of Everfree was as alive as it ever was... as it ever would be. This was all suddenly a peninsula before a rippling sea of paradise, Scootaloo thought.

“Miss Fluttershy?”

“Yes, Scootaloo?”

Scootaloo bit her lip and bravely uttered, “Be bold. Invite your friends over. Don't wait for an invitation. Bring them here... Let them share all of this—all that's beautiful with somepony you care about.”

There was a light giggle, and with a toss of her pink mane, Fluttershy effortlessly smirked. “I already have.”

Scootaloo exhaled. Try as she might, she could not stifle the deep burning in her heart.

“Say hello to your parents for me, Scootaloo,” Fluttershy said with a soft wave.

Scootaloo nodded. With one breath, she peeled her eyes away from the angelic source of that melodic voice and beat her wings until her scooter coasted her back into a colder, darker world.

“Oh how I wish you could have met them,” the foal quietly said to the whipping morning wind.

Twenty five years later...


...she still wished she could say more.

Harmony took several wincing breaths. She clutched her hooves to the invulnerable skull underneath her black mane. With tense muscles, she weathered wave after wave of green fumes roaring down towards her from the high cloud of the future. Ever since she carried the possessed Dinky into the mana-cave, it had been like this. Something about the entire brush with the Capricorn's magical resonance had sucked Spike's breath from her Entropan soul.

It was only a matter of time, and she would be gone. She would vanish. Harmony knew this as if it was a natural thing. Like an infant tossed into a deep lake, she knew how to swim in less than a minute of drowning within these effluent green bubbles. At anytime, at any moment, she would be whisked away from this land of soft sighs, smiles, and sobs—three warm things that the last pony in her decades of isolation had pitifully forgotten were blissfully related with one another. Her mission was in jeopardy; everything was about to be cut short. She still hadn't even gotten close to contacting Princess Celestia. But was it a failure?

Clearing her way through another migraine, she tilted her head up from where she stood. The copper pegasus had been hunched over in Fluttershy's washroom, her exhausted face slumped over the sink, but now she was facing forward so that she gazed nose-to-nose with an alien reflection in the mirror. The gentle light of the mid-morning sun kissed every angle of that copper complexion, revealing deeper pores and sadder winkles in the flesh of the Goddess of Time than Harmony had ever noticed before.

Twenty-five years ago, the last time she ever had a solid reason to gaze into that mirror, the image that looked back was a dark shadow obscured by the refracted kiss of drizzling afternoon rain. To her mixed relief, everything shone now in a great, copper clarity. It was not her skin to be wearing; she was an orphan to life and to time.

She was no longer an orphan to herself.

Something lit up, something like a smile, and then another wave of agonizing green fumes washed over Harmony. The last pony hissed, clutching her skull once more and fighting the tears as she fought the fangs of the future sailing down to pierce her, to impale her, to drag her back to the Briar of black thorns like a cocktail treat.

Fighting back a piercing lump in her throat, Harmony aimed a seething breath towards the washroom ceiling. She could try to spend what scant few minutes were left of her projected soul self's visitation towards contacting the Princess. She could kick the walls down, throw herself before Fluttershy's hooves, and outright beg the anchor to tow her all the way to Canterlot. What good would it be if she was to disappear in a green puff of smoke right there before Her Majesty? Would she have any luck lasting the infernal trip to the Royal Palace itself?

“About as much luck as Dinky would have had,” Harmony murmured to herself in a droning monotone.

If she had come to this realization earlier, on a prior trip, while visiting Applejack or Cheerilee—she would very likely have broken into sobs. Instead, she maintained her composure. Only a few things in the world deserved a good cry. After seventy-two hours in the arms of Everfree's finest, Harmony was spent.

It was not a failure. She told herself this with a sad gaze drifting down from her glossy reflection in the mirror until she stumbled upon a familiar stain. The smudge of a hoofprint was still there from where she reached out for herself the night before last. Something about it pierced the last pony's eyes from all angles, because the hoofprint was complete, it was a circle.

Her lips parted. Swirling her pupils around the lengths of the mirror's smudge like clockhands, she spun and flashed a glance towards the tile floor. The porcelain fragments of a shattered bunny figurine still littered the space before the door. The air was dry, but Harmony could suddenly smell rain from beyond the walls, from beyond time itself.

She couldn't possibly explain why, but she smiled. She smiled so much that she hardly felt the next wave of green talons smokily clamboring for her. With an even breath, she stumbled out into the hallway beyond the washroom, leaving the mirror's smudge and the shattered porcelain bits immortally undisturbed.

Harmony paused and gazed into the cottage's den where two pegasi sat nose-to-nose. Fluttershy was there. Her body was calm, her eyes were dry, and she was chatting quietly and serenely with her friend, Derpy Hooves. The mailmare nodded and talked back, carrying forth a conversation that was only meant for the two Ponyvillean friends suspended in this warm and pristine past. It was almost as if the last pony had never come there to begin with. Soon, nopony would be the wiser.

Harmony knew what she wanted to do next... what she needed to do. After another cloud of green claws assailed her, she set forth on her final task. Shuffling out of the cottage, exiting out of a side door, navigating the borders of the manger out back, Harmony came upon a pile of tools lying besides a project that she had started on the night before last. Grasping the blue surfaces of the wooden structure, she held her breath and shoved the thing counter-clockwise around the lengths of the cottage and towards the kitchen.

For the last time, she struggled to beat back the immutable walls of the future. It was a difficult exercise; her Entropan lungs nearly failed against the chronotonic waves of emerald rippling through her. With a deep concentration, she succeeded. She shoved the thing inside the cottage, pushed it into the kitchen, and propped it up against a lone corner where the only pony who would see it would do so under the guidance of destiny, like a pegasus having outrun timberwolves and then anointing the gray mists of the Wasteland with laughter.

Dusting her hooves off, Harmony gazed one final time towards the den beyond. The muffled words of Derpy and Fluttershy stroked the twitching lengths of her ears. She smiled as soon as she heard the melodic voice between the two. Turning her copper wings against the warmth, Harmony marched out of the household altogether. There was another breath of green fumes, and she stumbled—realizing that she was standing suddenly in a grassy yard besides a babbling brook. The familiarity of the scenery stabbed her with a foal's droning voice from the side:

“I still saw you fall from the sky, y'know.”

The time traveler froze in place, blinking. Harmony glanced down at the grass beneath her, realizing it was the exact same spot where she had landed from the invisible tunnel of reverse-time three days ago. A wry smirk, and she twirld in a circle to glance toward her immediate left.

Dinky squatted at the tiny teaset inside an even tinier chair. Her bobbing head waved an immaculate stub of a horn as she gazed up at the last pony and spoke, “Do you ever care to explain that to me?”

“Your mom may explain her love to you,” Harmony said as she trotted over and squatted before the circle of saucers and stuffed animals. “Fluttershy may share the feeding and care of animals to you. But me? I'm a whole 'nother ballgame, kid.” She reached forward and ruffled the foal's blonde mat of hair. “I hope you do realize: you cannot learn everything. Some stuff in life has to remain unexplained—otherwise, where would all the fun be?”

Dinky giggled, then bore a sarcastic frown. “But learning is fun.”

“Then I know a little unicorn twice your age who must be having the time of her life. But that's okay—I'd rather not poke a stick through your hide and roast you before a campfire.”

The unicorn made a raspberry with her tongue.

“Watch it, kid. That's addictive. Trust me.”

“Mother says that she watched you single-hoofedly save my life last night.”

“I dunno if anybody's ever told you, kid. But... uhhh... Your mother doesn't exactly see very well.”

“Is extreme sarcasm a trademark of every clerk from Canterlot?”

“No, just smarty-smarty-pants McNoponies who fall from the sky.”

“Heeheehee...”

Harmony took a deep breath, but her Entropan smile lingered as she carefully navigated a mental minefield, then bravely took a leap before the little foal. “Hey... uh... kid. I know that you went through a heck of an awful lot of crud last night...”

“I don't think so! I think I did just fine!”

“Heh, cute. Ahem...” She squinted with amber specks. “You don't... uhh... You don't possibly remember any of the crazy things you were rambling on about while that Capricorn essence was turning your horn into a cosmic radio antenna, do you?”

“Mother says that I said a lot of weird and scary things. It's... It's all a very crazy blur. I find it a rather remarkable experience. But I know that's only a cruel thing to say, since I had scared you all so badly while I was... possessed.”

“You... You don't happen to remember anything about the stuff you may or may not have said?” Harmony bit her lip and dryly swallowed. “You... You don't remember saying anything about an 'Onyx Eclipse?'”

Dinky slowly shook her head. “No, ma'am.” She underwent a brief dizzy spell, but swiftly snapped out of it like nothing had happened. “It's all such a hazy ball of stuffy memories; I don't think I could remember a thing. I'm very sorry. I wish I could tell you what it all meant.”

“Don't be sorry. It's... Uhm... It's not important, I... I'll deal.” She planted a hoof on the kid's shoulder. She tried, but she couldn't look into the foal's bright yellow eyes, not with what she struggled to say next. “You, uhhh...” Harmony's voice cracked slightly, but she hid it with a tight smile. “You have a healthy l-long life, kid. I-I mean it.”

“I'll try, Miss Harmony.” Dinky sweetly and politely smirked. She raised a pitcher. “Tea?”

“Not where I'm going.” Harmony stood up, reeling briefly in a kiss of green wind. Snapping out of it, she heard the creak of the cottage door. Glancing up, she saw Derpy Hooves marching slowly out of the house, tying the mailbag to her flank. With a deep breath, the mailmare gazed bravely towards opposite horizons of the late morning. Her face was tranquil, at ease. It was positively infectious—

“She admired you.”

Harmony blinked. She glanced down at the blonde unicorn. “Huh?”

“When she went out of her way to put you in the arcane vault...” She murmured through lingering lips. “...it was because she cared for you too.”

The last pony jolted. Her eyes instantly went concave. “D-Dinky...?”

The foal dizzily reeled and caught herself with two hooves planted atop the table. “Nnnngh... Yes?”

“Who cared for me?”

“Somepony cared for who?” She squinted tiredly up at the copper pegasus. A weak, embarrassed smile. “Oh, I do apologize, Miss Harmony. I... I'm still wiping clean the cobwebs. Did I just say something silly?”

The last pony blinked a few times, but managed a steely smile as her whole body warmed up, warmed hotter than the morning sun. “No. As a matter of fact...” A shuddering breath. “It was very kind...”

“Mmmm... If you say so.” The little pony plopped down from the teaset, scampered over, gave Harmony's front leg a gentle nuzzle, then scampered off. “Bye!”

“So long...” Harmony waved a limp hoof, gazing as the child trotted gaily up to her mother.

Upon sight, Derpy immediately bent down low and nuzzled her child. A few murmured words were exchanged between them. Derpy flashed Harmony a slightly distant look, then nodded to the unicorn while motioning towards the cottage. The little gray foal excitedly trotted inside the building to say good-bye to Fluttershy while the mailpony strolled slowly towards the “Canterlotlian Clerk” standing in the middle of the yard.

Harmony gulped, then smiled. “H-hey there.”

“Hello to you t-t-t-t-t-t-too...” Derpy stood, fidgeting. One of her eyes was resting on the visitor, which must have meant she was trying not to look in her face.

“So... Uhhh... 'Neither rain, sleet, snow, nor hail'—But you can certainly rip 'crazy-Capricorn-infant-energy-possessions' off the list, huh?” Harmony grinned nervously.

“I will be fine at my job, if that was your way of expressing concern,” Derpy dryly replied. With a nervous gulp, she bore a crooked smile. “Especially with these circumstances, the Equestrian Postal Service will understand. Believe me, they've forgiven this loopy p-p-p-p-pony for much, much worse.”

“Well, you may be loopy, Miss Hooves,” Harmony said while brushing at a few blades of grass with a lone, copper hoof. “But you're sure as heck loyal. Dinky is... She is lucky to have a mother who...” Harmony glanced briefly towards the front end of the cottage, towards a golden shadow that she had once cradled inside. “....who cares so much for something so... so sweet and precious...”

“I think I know why Miss Fluttershy instantly takes a liking to you.” Derpy smirked slightly. “You really are a quick learner.” She bit her lip in a painful exhale. “I... I thought you were just like so many other ponies in my life. I thought that you didn't c-c-c-c-care. But I was wrong. You do care. You just do your caring really harshly.”

Harmony blinked. She managed an awkward blush. “Eh-heheheh... To each their own, r-right?” She brushed the back of her black mane, fought a shuddering current of green leaves, and bit the edge of her lips. “Mmmm... I... I just want to say thank you, Miss Hooves.”

“You're thanking me?” Her twirling eyes rattled. “Whatever for?”

“For showing me that I've got so many crooked parts of myself that I still have to smoothe straight.” She winced briefly, but gave a smile. “Thanks for... for giving me somepony to be kind to.”

“We're not half as kind as we are lucky, Miss Harmony,” Derpy Hooves firmly said.

“Yeah, well, I—” Harmony paused in mid-speech. She blinked hard. “Wait, what did you just call me?”

The door to the cottage opened yet again. This time Fluttershy poured out with Dinky in tow. “Miss Hooves! Ohhhh—Don't leave without letting me say goodbye!”

“Heheheheh...” The wall-eyed mare turned from the visibly gaping Harmony with a swish of her mailbags and smiled her way into Fluttershy's company. “You'll see us in a few days! How c-c-c-c-could I turn down our favorite babysitter, isn't that right, my M-M-M-M-Muffin?”

“Mmmhmmm! Fluttershy says she'll teach me how to play 'Go Filly!'”

“Oooh! I love ballgames!”

“Motherrrrrrr.”

“Heheheh.”

“Heeheehee!”

Harmony blinked. Her dropped jaw morphed into a gentle smile as she tongued the corners of her cheeks, but found no incisors. “Huh... Guess I just have to give up the flying merchant business, eh Brucie?”

Fluttershy could be seen nuzzling Dinky's soft head. “You keep reading your books, Dinky. But don't be afraid to stop now and then to enjoy your youth while you can. And best of all—make friends!”

“Mother says that nopony can be too careful with friends!”

“Yes, well, your mother and I talked long and hard about that. We both think it's time for a few changes.”

“Changes?” Dinky blinked. “Will I be listening to books on tape now?”

“Ohhhh joy.” Derpy tossed her already rolling eyes and grabbed hold of the unicorn foal with a smile. “We'd best be off, Muffin.” She stuffed the kid effortlessly into a pocket of her maibag. “It's looking like a lot of rain this afternoon!”

“Just be sure to fly away from the clouds this time, Mother!” Dinky winked while strapping on her helmet.

“With your help—Mother always flies straight! Pilot to navigator!”

“Contact!”

The wind kicked up heatedly with the mother and daughter's flight, carrying them like two gray hearts into the golden shine above.

“So long, Miss Harmony! Miss Fluttershy! Thanks for getting the cosmic creature of epic proportions out of my extra-temporal neurological system!”

“Uhm... Anytime, Dinky!” Fluttershy waved up. She sighed and gazed lovingly as the two melted away into the morning horizon.

With a soft padding of hooves, Harmony strolled over and stood beside the caretaker in front of the unassuming cottage. “It's true. I believe it whole-heartedly.”

“Hmmmm?” Fluttershy blinked her soft blue eyes in the copper pegasus' direction.

Harmony murmured as she stared over the obscured rooftops of Ponyville beyond, bathed in platinum obscurity from the rising crest of time. “You would make such a great mother, Fluttershy. More than you...” A deep gulp. “More than you will ever know.”

Fluttershy glanced down past the dangling tresses of her silken mane. “How could a decent mother spring forth from such a lackluster example?”

“It's only natural.” Harmony glanced over in a calm gaze. The claws of reverse-time threatened to pull her apart in green strings at any moment, but she maintained enough cohesion to say: “You do all the things that were never done for you. You figure out all the secrets that the gaps in time divulge to you.” Her gaze skated off towards the distant, dew-laden fields separating the cottage from the Everfree bosom, like a scooter gliding beneath a lone orphan. “You figure out all the things you've ever loved or regretted in life, and you decide on which of those things are worth passing on and which are not.” She smiled sweetly over her shoulder. “What is Mother Nature if not a constant, immutable checklist of all the things that should be done right? It's perfect—as if it was made for... as if it was made for ponies like you... ponies like us.”

Fluttershy glanced at Harmony with a renewed breath of concern. “Miss Harmony, where does somepony like you come from... who would so randomly and selflessly bless my life... beyond duty and beyond sanity and beyond fear?” Her blue eyes narrowed. “It has been three days, and yet I still cannot shake the feeling that I have seen you before.”

“That's the thing about kindness, right?” Harmony smirked and waved opposite loopty-loops with her hooves on either side of her cranium. “It all works in a circle, doesn't it?”

“So I have always believed for so, so long...” Fluttershy breathed warmly and her blue eyes moistened. “And now...I feel so rewarded.”

“You've been tossing treats before ducklings for years. Maybe karma's stopped being a female dog for once.”

“Heeheehee... If you say so, Harmony.”

“I do.” Harmony spoke, but paused with her tongue against her teeth as she hissed painfully at the thought of this gentle moment ending like so many others she had the audacity to dive greenly down to... and would yet still. “I... I will never forget you, Miss Fluttershy. Not as long as there are ponies... Not as long as I exist.”

“Nor will I forget your strength, your courage...” Fluttershy drifted over and nuzzled the “clerk” with feather-silk softness. Her melodic voice hummed dearly, “...or your kindness.”

“Yeah... Some circles don't know when to quit...” Harmony smiled awkwardly through the tense green waves at her. “Do they?”

“Mmmm... I guess not.” Fluttershy tilted her head about and squinted into the burning sunrise. “Those clouds... Derpy Hooves was right; it looks like a terribly huge stormfront is being planned for this afternoon.”

“Yeah,” Harmony dryly murmured, once more reaching for goggles that weren't there. She only smirked at the sudden silliness of the habit. “Who'd a thunk it, huh?” She cleared her throat, glanced at the cottage, and motioned over her shoulder with a hoof. “Hey, look—While you and Derpy were chatting, somepony dropped something off.”

“Oh?” Fluttershy blinked quizzically. “I was talking with the town's mailmare and some other pony dropped something off at my cottage?”

Harmony smirked with a slight wince. “Yeah, well—It was a kid.” The world was bubbling now. She could already make out a throng of black vines pouring in through a great emerald tunnel stretching above her, about to swallow her shuddering self at any second. She bravely coughed. “I'd describe her as a lil' scamp of a foal, some young orange punk on a scooter that she was driving waaaaay too fast. You have any idea who I'm talking about?”

Fluttershy blinked. A soft, bemused smile crossed her yellow lips. “Yes. Yes as a matter of fact, I believe I do.”

“Yeah, well. She... uhm...” It wasn't a lie, it wasn't a truth, it was simply righteous. “She left something for you. She claims it's something she built with her own hooves. But I dunno how the heck that's possible. The little filly looked too scrawny to carry so much as a mallet.”

“You would be surprised at how strong precious things can be.”

“Not really. Not anymore.” Harmony smirked. “Anyways—I did you the favor of rolling the heavy thing into the kitchen for you.”

Fluttershy blinked awkwardly. “Heavy?”

“Yeah. I figured that you could do with it whatever you like—But if I were you, I wouldn't let any guests into that kitchen. That place is filthy, girl!”

“Erhm... Yes, I suppose.” Fluttershy blushed deeply. “It's hard to remind oneself to be cleanly when most of the time you're only feeding animals.”

“Then feed something that can talk back.” Harmony said. “Give that friend of yours, Rarity, a holler. Get her to come out of hiding and just be with her.”

“Rarity...” Fluttershy murmured in a suddenly warm breath. Her features washed over with a rosy hue as she sailed the crest of a happy, happy thought. “I would very dearly enjoy her company once again...”

“Nopony's stopping you.” Harmony squeaked to say. The green fumes were positively blinding. She hoped—the little foal in her daringly prayed—that Fluttershy couldn't see the same chaos that the last pony was drowning in. “Seize the moment... Fluttershy...”

“Out of curiosity” Fluttershy innocently gazed at her and asked, “This little foal, the orange visitor: where did she go?”

Harmony was silent for a few throbbing seconds. Numbly, she repeated, “Where did she go...?”

Fluttershy nodded slowly.

Harmony eventually smiled, eventually answered: “Southwest of here. Towards that lonely memorial, I'm guessing.”

“You mean Everclear?” Fluttershy blinked curiously towards the southern horizon. “What brought her there?”

“What brings anypony anywhere?” Harmony gave a cryptic wink. Then the past disappeared in a puff of green.

Fluttershy flashed a look back. Her pearl blue eyes narrowed, for her friend, the Canterlotlian Clerk, was no longer there. The world was lonely once more, and it suddenly stabbed the silence of the cottage far more severely than the Ponyvillean animal tamer had grown accustomed to over the years. She distracted herself with a pivoting of her hooves, a flick of her tail, and a firm march into the depths of her cottage—following a curious whim.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Fluttershy walked into the kitchen, she almost immediately stumbled into it. With a helpless shriek, she hobbled back, blinking, waiting as the image of what was before her swam back into focus. After a few meandering blinks, her breath finally escaped her lips.

It was a table. It was the table. On a sparkling night—several months ago—three souls had blessed her cottage with their joyous presence. On that evening, the thing had shattered... but here it was, standing before her as good as new, with each of its blue furnished planks sticking tried and true to one another. It almost looked in better condition than it was before, perfected in a way, immutable.

A slight giggle came out of Fluttershy. She thought of a pink-haired foal with a bucket on her head. That image blurred with all of the crazy moments of the past forty-eight hours, and suddenly Fluttershy's wings were being unfolded as if an invisible wind was pushing her forward. There was a righteous cyclone billowing in her heart, and she could do nothing but smile.

In a sudden breath, Fluttershy glanced all around—then set to work gathering a wicker basket, several bags of bread crumbs, and a throng of lilies that crowded an array of flowerpots resting daintily in the kitchen window....

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Even from the level of the clouds, Fluttershy could see her—like an orange dot against a white sea of stones. Something leaped in the mare's heart, something curious, yet something delighted in the two ends of the day coming together to kiss the sight beneath her in the heated stare of the noon sun. When she pulled her wings in and landed swiftly behind the foal, it was with an excited breath, rather than a startled one, that produced the resulting chirp:

“Oh! Hello, Scootaloo.”

“Ahem. Fluttershy, hey there.” The surprised foal spun about as if she was found in the middle of an impossible crime. “Uhm...What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

“I was about to ask the same of you.” Fluttershy smiled and began her task of laying the flowers down upon the stones—sweet and precious things for sweet and precious souls. “Somepony said that I might find you here.”

“Really? I'm not in trouble or anything, am I?”

“Heeheehee... Good heavens, no. Hmmm... Quite the opposite, actually.”

Scootaloo squinted curiously. “What's gotten you in such a cheerful mood today?”

“Ohhhh...” Fluttershy swallowed the warm breaths of mother nature, savoring it like a lullaby that was never sung to her. She could do nothing but smile. “I just had the most cheerful thought, of circles within circles. Kindness is like a dance, and everypony is sharing the floor with each other... mmmm... whether they know it or not. It is a joy to see you, dear Scootaloo. It always is.”


In a cascading curtain of emerald flames, a thin brown waif of a creature appeared in the darkest-of-dark pits. Her short pink hair fluttered with Entropan fumes. Her nicked and scarred hooves rested placidly against the stone floor beside an empty glass jar and shredded bits of leather-armored saddlebags. The blossoming appearance ended as soon as it began, and with a fading green gasp, the last pony melted once more into the dark tomb of the Wasteland.

There was a long, frigid exhale. She opened her scarlet eyes... only to realize that she could see her own breath vapors. It was not pitch black in the sunken sea of the Briar. That could only mean...

A deep rumble rose in the distance. The shivering pony jolted, the tiny pink hairs rising on her bony neck as she gazed in a resurrected fright across the subterranean landscape. Scootaloo had returned... She had returned to this nightmare hovel, and the blue light was coming to greet her, thundering on titanium paws at the merest hint of her equine scent.

In a flurry, the last pony gathered her things, hoisted her armor over her flank, pocketed the bottle, and trotted through the calcified bits of Fluttershy as she made for the break in the brambles. She ducked under the vines and vines and vines of thorns and squeezed her shuddering form onto barren stone in time to break into a full-speed gallop.

The bowels of the Everbriar bled bright and blue behind her as the hulking predator thundered murderously, angrily after its prey.

Scootaloo fled instinctually from it... until she suddenly and nakedly understood that anger, shuddered at the copper taste of it. Her gallop pattered off into a shuffling gait, and soon she had stopped completely, panting into the horizon of what she was about to do next.

The blue aura was blinding now. Parting several crumbling branches of black thorns aside, the hulking Ursa Major leered back into existence, drooling and growling down at the foolish speck of a hoofed creature that had suddenly stopped in the direct path of its charge.

The last pony slowly turned around. With soft-sad eyes, Scootaloo gazed up at the lumbering beast.

Its forefangs glinted cosmically. The bear brimmed with hateful constellations and reared its fist up to smash the pegasus into a pulp.

Maybe this was the moment that she was destined to die. Maybe this was the moment when time caught up with her. All Scootaloo knew was that this was simply that: a moment, and she had the power to do kind things.

So she did. Scootaloo spoke. She breathed in a voice that oozed effortlessly, like a silk-soft melody. “You've lost your mother.”

The bear's bloodshot eyes twitched. In a fitful hiss, it froze confusedly in place. Its starlit coat dulled slightly as the tightness in its muscles suddenly and inexplicably melted upon the crest of those spoken words.

“She died—She couldn't swim back to the heavens because of the anomaly that threatened to burn her... To b-burn both of you...” Scootaloo murmured gently. “The Onyx Eclipse.”

The Ursa Major blinked, its shimmering pupils shrinking as a pitifully warm forest of living green bubbled up out of the melodic tone of the pony's Celestial Tongue, at the brazen kindness the measly prey had the audacity to use in the face of the beast's endless confusion and anger.

“You've been alone ever since then. Well that's okay.” Smiling painfully, Scootaloo squeaked like the foal she somehow couldn't stop being, not even for a single ashen day. “I've lost my mother too.” A hideously torturous breath. “Twice.”

The Ursa lowered its paw. With wilting eyes that lost all its cosmic fire, it heaved and stared pitifully into some razor-sharp cloud of agony beyond the tiny pony's figure.

Scootaloo gently trotted over towards the hulking weight of the blue beast, her body bathed in its tear-scented breaths. “We... We are more than just orphans to time. We are all that has ever been and all that will be.” With a sniffle, she spoke the words of a wise, draconian soul. “Everything that lives is alone. And yet... And yet we are all not. Maybe you can sense it, Celestia knows I'm starting to. We all lose our mothers... It's what we're born to do. The only thing that holds us together, that solidifies the disheveled parts of our mosaic souls... is kindness.” With a whimpering shudder, Scootaloo knelt before the enormous jaws of the beast. “I only want to be kind to you.”

Those jaws did not clamp down over the last pony. Instead, they quivered—stifling a high-pitched growl as a forsaken cub bled to the surface of the cosmic accident its life had become, stuck on a world with no sun or moon to help it find its way home, with only the crucified corpses of the upper world's fossils to preach its endless rage to. Melting under the caretaker's Celestial Tongue, the savage beast bowed to her melody. Its tears formed a sea that washed the littered thorns away.

“Shhh...” Scootaloo smiled her way through the wounds of her brown coat and raised a gentle hoof to the starry crest of the Ursa's writhing forehead. “The world is a strange and confusing place. It's okay to cry about it.”

The titanic bear did just that, blanketing the abandoned womb of Everfree with as many wails as its blue body could ever hope to illuminate. Scootaloo weathered every shaking sob, her tears spilling out over a blessedly grinning face as she shut her eyes to the sapphiric miasma and sung Mother Nature's circle back across the ashes of time. She soothed a lonely, shivering foal that—after so much pain and unanswered prayers—would blissfully become this.

“Hush now, quiet now, it's time to lay your sleepy head. Hush now, quiet now, it's time to go to bed...”

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