The grayed clouds cast their dim shadow across the fields of Equestria, its gentle trickle of the cold rain damping the earth. Harsh winds blew through the trees and crashes of an infuriated thunder echoed through the air. The joy of the world seemingly sapped from existence for this brief moment.
A pale blue pony trotted through the slick grass to a deep rectangular hole in the ground. She stared hollowly at the box. No pony else came near. Apart from her and an elder pony who was reciting various phrases, the fields were completely empty.
"May you're soul rest in peace." The elder pony said at last and the decorated wooden box slowly lowered into the ground.
"Goodbye, Raven Flame…" the pony whispered, removing the golden pendant she wore from around her neck and dropping it into the darkness. She pulled herself away from the spot, a barely distinguishable stream of tears rolling down her cheeks. Her eyes burned with hatred and anguish for the world. This would be the last time she would ever allow some pony into her now hardened heart.
The pony thrust herself from the ground and into the air, pushing herself ever faster towards Sweet Apple Acres. She dropped herself just inches from the gate, which for the first time since the farm had ever been built, remained chained shut. She placed her hoof on the foreclosed sign bolted onto the fence.
Since the loss of the Apple Orchards the year Rainbow Dash had proposed to Applejack, the city of Ponyville had slowly started to fall apart. In some way the farm had been the source of the town's economy. No longer hosting an annual sale of cider the tourists who came to Ponyville no longer showed.
Without the outsiders, the demand for sweets dropped drastically and soon after Sugar Cube Corner shut down. Just as Sugar Cube Corner, the Fashion Boutique had lost the majority of its customers. With the plummet of sales, that too was closed down shortly after. No longer having a steady market, the ponies who worked their stalls in the streets began to close up as well.
In just a few short weeks all of Ponyville became abandoned. Those who hadn't left from the economical failure evacuated as the town became destroyed by the repeated assault of visiting looters. Now only she remained the last pony to reside in the town.
Others had tried to convince her to leave, but an empty hope was keeping her there. The hope that held her there was fading and doing so quickly. A promise nothing more than a few words that had been uttered to her nearly a year ago. Those words had been a pledge; a vow of the pony she waited for never straying from her.
"Where are you?"
Her heart ached as it continued its wait. The Pegasus lifted off the ground for a second time, peering at the worn down village from the sky. Her last place of solace, the library, had been scorched to the ground a few days after the market stands closed. There was nothing left for her here now, no family, no friends and no home.
Landing on the cliff's edge of the mountain that hovered above Ponyville she continued to stare, watching as the last train that would ever come to the town started its departure. This had been the only thing keeping her here. With the station having been shut down there would be no way for an earth pony to reach this place. This had been the last chance the pony she waited for would have at last arrived.
Finally she let go of the last thing she knew, that last strand of hope she clung onto desperately. The idea she still might have something left in this world, something she cared for vanished. The small blinding hope that had still bound her here had at last faded. She could stay here no longer.
The Pegasus took one last glance at what she had once been calling her home for years now. It was the place that had once brought her joy and laughter and love. Now it was nothing more than a memory, a painful shadow of what she once had and would never have again.
"I'm sorry…" she whispered. Extending her wings, she dove off the cliff and set herself in the direction of Canterlot with her last hope. The hope she could discover what had happened to the pony she had waited for. A chance that she might still be able to find her resting place and at last say good-bye.