Original Version of "Epitaphs" · 6:15am Nov 12th, 2014
The original version of "Epitaphs" was written this past Halloween as part of my own private writing challenge. There's a group on FiMFiction here called "The Writeoff Association" that's been running monthly writing contests over on this special site for a couple years now. They do one a month, but I've been going back and doing some of their earlier contests just on my own.
Their contest for this past August gave you 24 hours to write a story between 400 and 750 words with the prompt "Famous Last Words." So I wrote all day Halloween and finished my 688 word story on my laptop while sitting on the front porch handing out candy. But you can't post a 688 word story to FiMFiction, so I expanded it the next day into the story as it currently is.
But I've still got the first short version, so I thought I'd put it up as a blog post and link it to the final version in case anyone who liked that one wanted to see how it went with only Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Twilight in it.
Epitaphs
"My epitaph?" Applejack's face wrinkled like she smelled something bad. "Why in the hay're you asking a question like that?"
Taking a swig of cider, Dash shrugged. "I was just thinking the other day." She glared at her friend sitting on the other side of the Apple family kitchen table. "And no cracks! I can think just like everypony else, y'know!"
Applejack's confused look was already turning into a smirk. "You don’t want me making jokes, sugar cube, you shouldn't oughtta give me such perfect straight lines."
"I'm serious, AJ! I mean, we all gotta go sometime, and your headstone's, like, your last words carved in marble for the rest of whatever! You've only got that much space—" Dash held her front hooves out and moved them around to show how wide and tall she remembered a headstone being. "—and the letters can't be too small or nopony'll be able to read it. So I was thinking if you really had something you wanted to leave behind, you should probably figure it out early so it'll be ready if you ever, I dunno, crash the wrong way into a mountain or something."
Applejack nodded. "Seems powerful unlikely I'll be crashing into a mountain any time soon, but yeah." She leaned forward and patted a hoof between Dash's ears. "Could it be our little RD's growing up?"
"Will you—?" Dash batted Applejack's hoof away. "I'm being totally serious here!"
"I know y'are." Applejack took a sip of her own cider. "I weren't more'n a pup when my folks went, but I don't reckon they ever gave a bit's worth of thought to something like an epitaph. Granny's the one prob'bly put 'loving wife and mother' and 'loving husband and father' on the markers."
"Exactly!" Dash tapped a hoof on the table. "That's why I've gotta get mine all thought up now! I mean, imagine if you guys're still around when I go! How'll you ever decide what awesome thing about me is so awesome, it deserves to go on my headstone unless I write it down for you?"
Applejack's low, rough chuckle tickled Dash's ears. "Might be your awesomest whatever ain't even happened yet, y'know. 'Sides, I knows exactly what'cher stone's gonna say." She swept a hoof in front of her. "'Here lies Rainbow Dash. And over there, and over there, and a little over there, too.'"
That got a laugh out of Dash. "Y'know, I kinda like it. But yeah, you're right. I mean, I'd hate to write down an epitaph and then do something that was incredibly awesome and maybe not have time to change what I wrote down. Then it'd turn into a big thing with some ponies saying my headstone should say what I wrote and some ponies saying what I did later deserved it more." She shook her head. "It's just not worth the hassle." A quick thought made her laugh again. "Oh! And I got yours!" She leaned across the table, grabbed Applejack's hat in her teeth, and flipped it between her own ears. "'Here lies Applejack. Honest!'" She spread her front hooves. "Get it? 'Lies'? 'Honest'?"
Applejack snatched her hat back. "Ain't gonna be a tombstone for me," she said. "No way, no how."
"Uh-huh." Dash folded her front legs across her chest. "And how're you planning on arranging that?"
"Simple. They plant me at the edge of the orchard right by the road and scatter apple seeds over me." Applejack's voice got quiet. "That's a marker worth having, I'd say. Then any ponies, if'n they know you're down there or not, can get a little shade or a little snack when they're passing by."
Dash blinked, her throat feeling tight all of a sudden, and Twilight's voice called from outside. "Hi, guys!" She came trotting in, tucking her wings to her sides. "Sorry I'm late: I thought the mayor was going to go on talking forever." She smiled, her face as always bright and eager. "Hope I didn't miss anything."
Now Dash's throat was tight and dry. "Naw," she managed to say. "We were just, y'know, shooting the breeze."
W-why would you shoot the breeze? WHAT'D IT DO TO YOU!?
-- Okay, I'm done being silly now.
Your epitaph's story was interesting. Do you by any chance have any thoughts on what your epitaph would be like?
Strangely, I don't remember reading this. Nice combination of humor and seriousness. Bringing Twilight in to close it was clever.
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Oh, I didn't actually enter it in that month's contest. I didn't know the contests existed until the beginning of October. But I've been going backwards in time and doing the older prompts on my own just so I can write some stories.