With the pass of the years.

Author note: This is a little story I wrote several years ago when I started with all this thing of the fanfiction, but this can't be upload to the site so I decided to post it here. Is a little reflection about a common fact, the end of the show, and how a normal guy remember that time in a difficult moment of his life.

Peter was a normal man. He was 35 years old, 5 feet 9 inches. His black hair was straight and short. Matias had a normal life, or at least that was the case until not so much time ago. Thanks to a recent incident, he found himself in an empty apartment, cold and old, cardboard moving boxes about everywhere, away from the woman he loved and the daughter he cherished so much.

Lying in his bed, his mind was a complete mess while he questioned himself how was he capable of doing something like that. He had a wonderful wife who used to satisfy all his wishes and a beautiful 10 year old daughter to share unique moments. He had everything, including a well paid job, ensuring a life almost without worries, and although he had the usual issues with his relationship and his work, he always found a way to move on.

But now Peter found himself in a dead end. He asked himself why he did it, although thinking it thoroughly, he had no excuse for it. He cheated on the love of his life, he had betrayed her, the trust they built together down like a house of cards. His motive was indecipherable, if he had everything, why he did it? He knew there was something else, but sleep overcame him eventually.

Two weeks passed and Peter didn’t get news from his wife and his daughter. He tried to communicate with them everyday, but always was the same, direct to the answer machine. While he returned from work, he was looking a way to contact them, repentant for what happened. His family knows what happened and gave him words of encouragement, but also reproved his actions, no one imagined he could cheat on his wife, certainly, it was the first time ever.

after climb the stairs, he saw his best friend Mike who helped moving him to the apartment in front of yours, it was not the best building in the city, but he can’t afford luxuries right now.

“Hey Peter, what’s up?”

“Not good, she didn’t returned any of my calls yet,” answered Peter, recuntanly.

“Sorry bro, there’s something I can help?”

“No Mike, you did too much for me, I really appreciated that, but I want to be alone,”

“Okay, I gotta go gym now, if you need me, I’m next door.”

“I’ll remember,” said opening his door.

“Wait!” yelled Mike “almost forget, your parents came and left a few boxes in your apartment, when I asked what are those they said it was old stuff.”

“Thanks.” Concluded shortly while enters the apartment.

Like his friends said, there was three boxes on the table, with a knife he cut the tape of the first box, nothing important there, just a few family pictures, some of his high school years, his prom dance, etc. They brought him good memories, but he didn’t gave much importance.

When he opened the second box, he found something that gave him hours of fun, his Playstation 2 with all the games he played when he was a teenager, but it was not of his interest right now. He also found a lot of CDs with his favourite music, but it was not the moment for that. In the bottom of the box there was a old MP3 with his charger, he was intrigued about that white object, there was a old memory waiting to escape but it can’t.

One box left, he approached with curiosity and in a quick movement he cut the tape. Strange letters appeared.

MLP.

MLP… What’s that supposed to mean?

His mind wanted to tell him something, there was important things inside. He opened the box and found a SD memory, below a blanket hid the rest of the content, curious, he turned on his computer and inserted the memory. There was only one folder with the name “MLP” on it, inside it was more folders full of videos, music, images, flash games and a “Prohibited Content” with password.

“What are this things?”

He opened the “Episodes” folder, inside was more folders named “Season 1”, “Season 2”, up to the sixth season. He entered to the season 2 folder and founded many videos with previews of little and colorful horses, or it seemed. Feeling something strange inside him, he chose a random video and played it.

“No distractions,” said a lavender unicorn lighting a candle and closing the curtains “Today is too important. Re-shelving day!”

This is so familiar… I have to keep watching.

“Hey, you took my advice! Just use the whole floor as one big shelf.” said the dragon with a smile.

After that, a song take place, a song that Peter knew very well.

My Little Pony, My Little Pony
Ahh, ahh, ahh, ahhh...

(My Little Pony)
I used to wonder what friendship could be
(My Little Pony)
Until you all shared its magic with me
Big adventure
Tons of fun
A beautiful heart
Faithful and strong
Sharing kindness!

It's an easy feat

And magic makes it all complete
You have my little ponies
Do you know you're all my very best friends?

A wide smile covered his face, his mind filled up with nice memories. He closed the video and opened the music folder, a endless list of songs appeared, the name of the artists joined in his mind like a puzzle about to solve bringing more happy memories. Peter take a look to the list, his eyes opened suddenly, one of that songs was special for him.

Peter took a deep breath and pressed the play button, the sound wrapped the apartment.

It was a dark day when I lost my faith
I wasn't the pony I thought I'd be
And it seemed that no one could relate
There was nothing left to see

So I took a walk to the edge of the town
And thought of leaving it all behind
When I saw a little letter fall right out of the sky
As a grey mare hovered way up high

I thought I was crazy when I saw her wave
And then simply fly away
So I opened the letter and looked inside
And what was written made my day...
It said-

Isn't it great to be different?
Isn't it wonderful to be exactly who you are?
When you learn to start accepting yourself
You'll become a shining star…

While the song kept ringing, Peter travel the images gallery. First, slowly to remember each one, then he speed up like a slideshow, passing through every image in the folder. In the last image, he remembered a familiar word, with the music in the background he assembled all the pieces of the puzzle.

“Brony…”

These last few years flew by just like a blur
I'm now exactly where I should be
And I know I owe it all to her
The beautiful mare who believed in me

Isn't it great to be different?
Isn't it wonderful to be exactly who you are?
When you learn to start accepting yourself
You'll become a shining star

“Brony…”

You'll become a shining star (Isn't it wonderful)
You'll become a shining star (Isn't it great)

“I’m… a brony,” said with tears in his eyes.

Tears of joy fell from his face with a wide, he felt a warm sensation in his chest, his heart. With his right hand he covered his mouth and cried.

“This can’t be possible… it’s been a long time,”

XXX

With medical license, Peter locked himself in his apartment for the week, watching videos, listening music, seeing images and comics. The time flew, a couple of times his friend came to see what’s going on, but he ignored him. Steve, worried about his friend, put his ear in the door and listened inside, he smiled with the laugh of Peter. He understood the situation, came back to his home and used his phone to make a call.

“Hi Ms. Brooks, is Steve. Yes. Yeah. I called to tell you that don’t worry about Peter, I’m sure the depression will pass soon, how do I know? Let’s just say it’s a feeling, okay, take care, bye bye.” said Steve hanging up the phone.

I’m sure you’ll be the same again.

XXX

Three months passed since that problem and the winds of fortune guided him in the right direction. Unearth that memories of his adolescence bring his smile back, his joy which for years, even time before met his future wife, stopped feeling. His apartment was a warm place in comparison with the cold atmosphere in the beginning. The living room was well decorated and his room was full of pony stuff, posters, toys and plushes, a place that anyone think of a little girl but actually belongs to a separate and worker man of thirty seven years old.

The bell distracted Peter in his desire of cook, he wasn’t the best chef, but he could cook some plates. He cleansed his hands and run to the door, this was a visit that he expected during the week.

“Daddy, daddy!” shouted euphoric the girl.

“Hey princess,”

“Did you see any chapter while I was gone?” asked with adorable angry.

“No little princess, I never dare to break a promise, especially a Pinkie promise,” said Peter doing a cross in his heart.

His little daughter smiled and entered to the apartment.

“Stit at the table, lunch is almost ready!”

“Can I play with your Fluttershy?!”

“Alright, but not near the kitchen, I don’t want it to get dirty!”

“Fly pegasi, fly to the castle!”

His father cracked a smile with the moment until a feminine voice alerted him.

“Looks like our daughter have fun with you,” said Alice, a woman with dark brown hair and beautiful voice.

“Do you think that?”

“Sure, she waits all week to come here,”

“And she doesn’t tell you something?” asked Peter accusingly .

“What? No, she says is a father-daughter secret and “Celestia will banish me to the moon if I tell you something”” said making quotation marks with her hands.

An awkward silence invaded the atmosphere, all words were said.

“Well, I’ll see you in Sunday Stephanie, do your homework and obey your father!”

“Okay mom!” screamed from the inside.

“See ya Peter,”

“Wait!”

“What’s up?”

“I was wondering, if you have nothing better to do… I’m not saying that you don’t do anything all day! I mean, if you have free time…”

“Yes?”

“Would you want to go for a coffee with me?”

Alice didn’t expect a question like that. In someway, the form he ask her bring back memories of the first time he tried to ask her out long time ago, back then, he fainted after the proposition. This time was different, he doesn’t fainted, but his legs were shaking.

“Listen, Stephanie would sleep in a friend’s house tonight, take her there and then come to my place, fine?”

“Alright, see you there,” answered closing the door.

With a ear in the door, Steve heard all the conversation and the subsequents sounds of the house.

“A bird told me that you have a pajama party tonight,”

“Mommy told you?”

Peter nodded.

“Too bad we can’t see many chapters as we wanted,” said Alice sadly.

“Don’t worry. Hey, what do you think if we see some comics instead? Even I can read them like a bedtime story.”

“Yay, bedtime story!”

Steve smiled and dressed to go to the gym.

XXX

In the night, he remembered all the things lived that day. His eyes felt heavy but he want to keep remembering the past, but suddenly a question appeared in his mind.

How it’s that he had forgotten something that was so important to him?

First he thought it was a maturity theme, but if that were the case, his room wouldn’t have to be filled with pony stuff again, just with memories of that, but that was not the case.

Integrated, he turned on his computer, searched in Google “My Little Pony Friendship is Magic”, and opened the entry of Wikipedia. The information of his favourite show still there, he read almost the entire entry until he found a interesting detail:

“[...]whose transmission ended in the sixth season, ending in 2017 with 143 episodes, 4 movies, many comics issues and a lot of material produced by the fandom…”

So it ended in the season six, interesting.

Memories came to his mind, the Facebook groups, Deviantart, Equestria Daily, 4chan and others. But there is one thing he remembered perfectly, the last shitstorm in the last chapter of the serie, where everybody expressed his point of view about the closed end.

Peter opened his old Facebook profile and searched pages and groups which he was a member, for his surprise, he found none in the list. Then he tried searching any MLP group, but nothing happened, they were deleted, there was no trace of anyone, the same happened in Deviantart, even the forums related closed, it’s as if everyone had agreed to delete all the content but, how much time passed until that?

He searched in Google the possible answer, many forums showed superficially what were the bronies in the internet but there was nothing about their final, was there really a end?

The moon travel the night sky and Peter didn’t let his computer, his investigation reached a dead point, there was any page with the information he was looking for, until a idea came to his mind.

“4chan,” whispered.

He entered the site to the /mlp/ section, the last message there was “Anyone here?” written five months ago. He didn’t care about that and spend the rest of the night searching a thread to explain what happened. The rising sun showed up and Peter still searching, noon, afternoon, in the nightfall his eyes were near the collapse but he could read a large thread, maybe the one he was looking for.

“Three years have passed since the show ended and apparently, the fandom it’s coming to his imminent end. Many of us believed that this would last longer and better, but in the last discussion in the final episode all was clear, sooner or later, it would end.

“The content of the fandom became repetitive, a few masterpieces shone while the others were buried with the rest of the fanon that tried, somehow, to return the fandom to his glory. But that was just a nightmare trying, useless, to become a dream, even with the notice of a possible new generation.

“The people who made big contributions to the fandom left gradually and exoduses of bronies who were unhappy not improve the situation at all. The importants sites were having less visits until they close, the first ones were the Deviantart groups, then the others fell, even the /mlp/ section in 4chan began to show signs of flagging.

“I don’t know if someone will see this, I think… I came too late with my goodbye message. I also gave up. Although I was one of the last defenders of the fandom, now I drop the towel and said goodbye.”

With clarity, he began to remember the last days as brony. His artworks were not seen by anyone and there was no interaction in the groups that frequented. With sadness, he left them. With the passage of time, the pony stuff he had bought in conventions didn’t feel the same way, so he put his brony stuff in a box and moved on with his life.

But that was the past, I’m glad to be something that made me happy again but, What am I supposed to do now?

He saw a portrait of his daughter in the night table.

A new generation… That’s possible? But I have something to do first.

He returned to the last thread and answered “Yes, there’s one.”

With the tiredness expressed in a audible yawn he turned off his computer and went to sleep.

XXX

His luck seemed to trick him in a bad way, his car had a mysterious mechanical failure and Peter had to take the bus. Dressed with a suit and to the rhythm of “Smile” he left his thoughts flying away while he looked through the window. He left the bus and walked the rest of the path to the work. Since his return, his friends in the office noticed a change, with more energy and charisma than usual, of course, that was positive in his work. His black suit with a white shirt had something else that stood from the rest, a pin of the cutie mark of Rainbow Dash, he chose something subtle to not draw attention. His job never was so enjoyable.

During one of his trips to the bathroom, he used his smartphone to see 4chan site and verify if someone replied his comment. The joy overflowed him when he saw that comment. With a satisfactory smile, he left the bathroom and get back to work, for sure, he was going to resume a path abandoned eleven years ago.

He replied that answer with a:

“I knew I wasn’t the only one!”