//------------------------------// // Alternate Ending. // Story: Braggart's Bane // by Valorousspectre //------------------------------// Consider this my warning to you. This is the reason I have the Tragedy tag on this tale. Hope you liked the story so far! And here's your alternate Ending. Epilogue. Entry.. I'm not sure. The date is the eighteenth or something. I'm surprised to still be alive. Alive and the first awake... We're just now waiting on my Trixie to awaken... please don't die on me Trix. ~*~ It had taken all of about two minutes after Applebloom heard that despairing wail to get her sister, and all of three minutes more for Applejack to haul Trixie and her companion inside and call for Redheart. Unfortunately, the nurse couldn't pick the pair up in a storm, so they had to keep the pair as warm as possible for almost two hours before the staff from the hospital could arrive. Thankfully, the pair were breathing again by this time, although shallowly. It didn't take long to get them to the emergency ward in Ponyville hospital and the two were put in the care of Redheart, who didn't let in any visitors until such time as she thought they were stable. This took almost another three hours, and even then it was only Ro-siing who was stable. This is when he came to and realised he was in a hospital bed, after freaking out that is and having it explained to him. He was next to Trixies' bed and for that he was grateful. It didn't take long for him to fall asleep once more. He woke up to the laboured breathing of the powder blue Trixie half on him, half on his bed. His eyes widened. It was dark. "Trixie?" he whispered, concerned. Trixie let out a small, pained giggle. "Hey there... Trixie wanted to see your face one last time." "W...What are you talking about? They're helping you, you should be in bed!" Trixie shook her head. Her vitals, according to the monitors, were fading. "No... I'm right where I want to be... With you." Her hooves were on his chest, her head resting on his breastbone. She was smiling. "Now Trixie... don't you dare leave me here alone!" His voice rose in volume and started to sound concerned, bordering on hysterical. Oh please... Not like this! Trixie raised an eyebrow and once again tried to giggle, only succeeding in a slight coughing fit, making her vital signs waver crazily. The steady beeping of the heart monitor had slowed considerably. "And.. who are you to order The Great and Powerful Trixie around..?" "The one who loves her." Trixie paused for a moment and the heart monitor registered her heart literally skipping a beat, slow though they were. "You... love Trixie..?" Ro-siing nodded and gently caressed her silvery mane. "Yes... I do. And I don't want to lose you." Trixie smiled sadly, unable to move due to an extreme fatigue that had permeated her body since she'd forced herself from her bed onto his. "You'll never lose me Ro... I'll always be with you in spirit... but Trixie cannot hold on for much longer... she feels so cold and everything is so dark..." Ro-siing gulped, horrified at the prospect of losing her and looked around desperately, noting the red button next to his bed with white writing on it. 'PUSH FOR NURSE' Perfect. He quickly pushed the button and looked back to Trixie before gently wrapping her in his blanket. The air conditioned room wasn't exactly cold, but the warmer Trixie was, the better Ro-siing felt. "Now don't speak like that Trix... We're both going to get out of this, then we can get another caravan, like the one you lost and we can travel Equestria all over again. We can put on more shows..." He searched his mind desperately for another thing to give her reason. "Oh, and I haven't shown you the song yet. It's been finished I just... I haven't found the right time to play it to you." Trixies' smile, which had faded, returned with little warmth. There was the clatter of hooves in the hallway. "Trixie shall hear it as he watches over you from wherever she ends up." Redheart bustled into the room and looked at the powder blue mares' vitals and started to fret incessantly before rushing back out again. Ro-siing felt a stab of terror at her actions and shook his head at Trixie. "No, you'll hear it with me, when I play it for you in the moonlight by the light of the moon and a single candle after we've eaten. I swear, I won't let you die Trixie! Even if it means giving my life for yours." Seven ponies walked into the hospital as Trixie tried to giggle again. "No... Trixie cannot let the sacrifice of such a good stallion be for one such as herself... and... as for the song..." She dragged herself up a little higher to the bewilderment of all the ponies present and smiled once more. "I will see it... in my dreams..." Using the last of her strength, Trixie feebly kissed Ro-siing for a moment before falling back. In her last breath at almost a whisper, that all the ponies in the room seemed to hear... "I love you too..." ~*~ Ro-siing and the seven other ponies in the room looked in shock at the lifeless body of The Great and Powerful Trixie before the distraught stallion burst into tears and looked accusingly at them. "Do something! Make her better, please!" A Cyan Pegasus mare snorted. "She's dead, what more can we do?" The ferocious look from Ro-siing quickly got the mare ushered out of the room and swiftly booted from the premises as a lavender unicorn mare stepped forward. Twilight Sparkle... "Hi.. um.. My name is-" "Twilight. Twilight Sparkle, Dammit I know who you are! Would you please just help me!" He was clinging tightly to Trixies' lifeless body, sitting up in his bed as he shifted his grip slightly and started cradling her. Twilight frowned. "Right... um... I'm sorry, I'm not a medical pony I-" "please...?" A white unicorn with rather overbearingly style hair looked at Twilight, followed by the other ponies in the room bar from Redheart, who was checking the mares' vitals. "I'm sorry, I don't know what I can do!" Redheart got out a pair of defibrillators. "Girls, she's not completely dead yet, her brain is still functioning. I need to get her heart pumping again, but I'm afraid her body doesn't have the energy to sustain it anymore." Ro-siings' expression went from one of despair, to determination. "Then I'll give her mine." "And exchange one life for another? Don't be ridiculous. You're still recovering!" His horn had already started to glow. "My life is nothing to hers. She's the world to me, I won't let her die!" Twilight smiled sadly and stepped forward. "Then count me in as well. Rarity?" The white unicorn mare sighed theatrically and stepped forward as well. "If needs must, but I want an apology when she wakes up!" Ro-siing smiled sadly. He knew the mare was only half meaning that. He wiped a fresh set of tears from his eyes as three strands of magical energy flowed from the unicorns into Trixie and Redheart stepped forward. "Clear!" ~*~ Ro-siing sat on the crest of a hill overlooking a lake, his eyes distant. He'd been there all day. It was Spring now, he'd just been let out of the hospital. The soft sound of hooves on grass caught his attention and he turned around and smiled at the incoming unicorn, brushing away tears threatening to spill from his eyes. "Twilight... I didn't expect you so early." Twilight shrugged and smiled back. "I tend to get everywhere early. Beats being late." He turned back to the horizon and sighed. Twilight put a gentle hoof on his shoulder. "hey... you did your best.." "But my best wasn't enough Twilight Sparkle. My best wasn't enough to keep the one I loved alive, and it's my fault she's dead." Twilight looked away as tears streaked his fur down his cheeks and fell, glistening diamonds in the midday sun that shattered as they struck the grass. "Because of me, she couldn't find shelter in time. Because of me she didn't have the energy to go on. It's all my fault..." There was silence for what seemed like an eternity before Twilight nuzzled him gently. "At least stay for the funeral..?" "I wouldn't miss it for the world." ~*~ Final entry... Spring. Trixie is dead... and it's my fault. If I hadn't slowed her down, she would still be alive. Damn yourself Ro-siing. I attended her funeral. It's nothing I would miss. Any speech given was generic and I could TELL it was all half hearted. All except that of Twilight Sparkle. Her speech was truthful, I could tell. She even had tears at the end of it. Then it was my turn. I didn't prepare a speech. Preparation merely dulls emotions, and I didn't care about balance. I got up and poured my heart and soul out to the audience, hoping that wherever she was, Trixie could hear me. I ridiculed those who shunned her without first getting to know her, I praised her true self highly and then almost got in a physical fight with that blue Pegasus mare. I don't care. I can't say I'm happy here without her. Everything feels so lifeless and empty. This is the final entry I will make into this log of events. I must find some way to atone for my sins, and hope I meet Trixie again in the afterlife. Ro-Siing. ________________________________________ It took three days before Ro-siing was found, under a tree in the Everfree forest. Somehow, he had taken an extraordinary amount of magic and displaced the weather around him, turning it into a small, localised blizzard. He'd frozen to death in seconds. His journal was found next to him with one last note. 'Trixie forgive me, I need you. Life is empty without you and I don't think I could last on my own anymore anyway. I never wanted to cause your death... I wanted more time with you, to hold you close, tell you how I felt. Now I will get that chance. I'm coming Trixie... I'm going to hold you in my hooves once more and keep you warm through the nights. And this time I won't falter... I will whisper to you every night before we sleep. You will always be great and powerful to me... you're my Trixie, and I love you with all my heart.'