The grey skies above let loose with a torrent of rain, which only served to sour my mood even more. I hated the rain – it was raining when I had that car accident that killed my fiancée, and again after my mom's funeral. I sat there and shook my head.
"Figures," I muttered, just looking at the pond I almost drowned in when I first arrived. I got the rope out, filled the saddlebags with rocks that were lying around, and somehow managed to tie it around my barrel and saddlebags to make sure they wouldn’t slip off and that my wings were tied down. I stood up and walked slowly to the water's edge, since the heavy rocks made my gait somewhat wobbly.
"Useless as a human, useless as a pony..." I sighed as I closed my eyes and prepared to finish it off, when a familiar voice pierced the evening.
“Maverick!"
My eyes snapped open. Fluttershy was here?! I turned around to see her racing up to me, faster than I've ever seen her move before, which only served to make me feel guilty at putting her through this. When she arrived, she wrapped me in a hug of hooves and wings. Ashamed, I looked away, unable to meet her eyes.
"Please, don't do this! You're my friend and I would hate to lose you!"
I just sat there, absorbed in her embrace, confused. My mind just couldn't process anything, much less respond to her. She continued her pleas for my life.
"With everything you've done and been through, the progress you made in flying and helping other ponies...I know that the ponies you have met enjoyed your presence. Think of all that you've done for Twilight and Rarity. The castle looks a lot better than it had in a long time, thanks to you."
I still couldn't find anything to say in response when a sudden thud of the saddlebags hitting the ground behind me made me jump. Somehow, Fluttershy had managed to loosen the rope holding them to my body. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought she could do something like that.
"Think of the accident you had after you overworked your wings. You worked your way back and I was so proud of you when you started to hover and glide again."
Fluttershy gently coaxed me away from the water's edge and walked me back to her house with her wing draped over my body. Compassion radiated from her, unspoken yet understood. When we arrived at her house and she entered, I paused at the door. My voice decided to make a return.
"Fluttershy, how did you know where I was? Nopony saw me leave the castle."
She turned around to answer me, “Steve got me. He followed you, and when he saw what you were going to do, he found me. I was already on my way to the castle to talk to you. If it weren’t for him, I might have been too late,” he popped out of Fluttershy’s mane and waved at me.
“Little stinker, I thought that he was gone for good and didn’t care about me anymore.”
"Of course he cares about you. He followed you around all that time before you decided to adopt him. He did that because he likes you and thought you needed another companion,” Steve looked at me and nodded while Fluttershy continued, “You look like you could use some tea, I’ll be right back,” she whispers something to Steve, who salutes and turns to watch me as I entered her house and closed the door behind me.
After she left the room, Steve moved over to me. I started to pet him, lost in thought, wishing for a way out of this depressing mood. If I wasn’t staring where Fluttershy was, I might have missed Angel running through the room and out his bunny door. I dismissed the event as trivial, since he didn't seem terribly fond of me. I realized, as Fluttershy returned with tea and filled a cup for me, that I had to come clean. For everything that Fluttershy did for me, she deserved to know the truth.
“I…I can’t do this anymore…”
“Do what, Maverick?”
“F-Faking it…this…whatever I have,” I twiddled the cup between my hooves before I took a sip.
“I’m not sure I understand. Please, tell me.”
“Well, it started a few days before I arrived in Equestria. I had left my job to visit my Mom in the hospital. She…was dying of a very bad disease that they couldn’t cure. My brother was there, which surprised me, seeing as how we hadn’t seen or spoken to each other much since my parents divorced, but that’s a story for another time. I went to my Mom’s room and we talked about the day we had, remembering the happy days of the past, things like that.”
Fluttershy sat there, still with a look of concern as I continued my story.
“For a moment, I t-thought she was gone, as her hand in mine went limp. She wasn’t, though, and she asked me something that I never thought she would. She said to me, ‘I don’t want you to come here anymore.’”
Fluttershy gasped, “Why would she ask you such a thing?”
I sighed, “Well, she said, ‘I don’t want you to remember me like this. I want you to go out and have a life you are happy with.’ I couldn’t believe she just said that, but what do you say? I couldn’t just say no to my own mother. I tried to lie to her, as I did you, saying I was happy. She saw through that right away. I could only tell her that I promised, and I then left her side.”
“That must have been a very hard promise to make, Maverick. I can understand why you did what you did. You were only trying to fulfill your promise to her.”
“Well, what made it worse was when I got home, I got a message that she had passed away.”
I managed to look at Fluttershy and saw she was starting to cry. I didn’t even notice that I had started crying myself. Choking back my tears, I continued my story.
“Well, after the funeral, at the reception, my brother basically accused me of ‘abandoning’ my mother, not even believing what I told him of her request. This…person…who was my brother, who basically wrote my mom off after my dad cheated on her! I then…threatened him with a knife without even thinking about it. I didn’t follow through, but I did leave him with some parting words, basically along the lines of ‘leave and don’t ever come back’.
“I’ve had all these setbacks and problems, and I just kept on with this false face of happiness, or just telling everyone that ‘I’m ok’. That’s what I can’t do anymore, fake being happy for everyone, or even everypony, but it's what I thought everypony wanted to hear. In a way, I started to believe it myself.”
Fluttershy moved over and hugged me again, and my tears resumed. It wasn’t until I couldn’t cry anymore that I was able to collect myself. I wiped my eyes with a fetlock when we separated, “Th-thank you, Fluttershy. I feel as if I made the right choice talking about this.”
“You're welcome. We’ll all help get you through this – it sounds quite disturbing…”
“I can understand why. There’s another thing that I had to deal with, but I feel the need to tell you so you know my whole story. You see, I…I had a fiancée, Sarah. We were deeply in love and it was a few months until our wedding when the accident happened. It was a wet road, my car spun out into the path of another, and the other car hit the side where my fiancée was sitting. She was killed instantly, something that I initially blamed myself for.”
She had a confused look, which I could understand as they don’t have cars here, but she doesn’t ask me anything.
“A year after that accident, and I realized that there wasn’t anything I could have done differently. I have since come to terms with it and remember the good times.”
She smiled, “That’s very mature of you, Maverick, but there’s another thing we need to talk about, isn’t there?”
“Y-yes, the nightmares that Steve told you I was having.”
I went over the nightmares in detail, how they were affecting my sleep, which, in turn, affected my behavior. Just going over the details made me shudder as if I had had another episode. I even told her about my encounter with Spoiled Rich. Fluttershy responded, “Maverick, I would be scared too if I had them. You said you had them since you arrived?"
I nodded.
"It's a wonder Princess Luna hadn't intervened by now. Promise me if they continue that you contact her."
“I promise,” I answered with a smile, a real one this time. A knock at the door startled me. “Who could that be,” I blurted out.
Fluttershy opened the door to reveal Twilight and Angel, “Thank you for coming so quickly, Twilight. Maverick has some things that he needs to talk with you about.”
My ears folded back as I thought of the way I had berated her before I left the castle. I looked at Fluttershy, who reassured me with a smile, then turned back to Twilight, “Twilight, I owe you an apology for what I said before I left the castle. I was out of line. I offer no excuse.”
I repeated what I told Fluttershy, including my attempted suicide, and noticed Twilight’s reaction. Compassion, concern, and shock crossed her face, and at the end, she hugged me as well.
“Maverick, I had no idea…I want you to know you don’t have to fake being happy here. We want to make sure you’re truly happy, and you’ve made a big first step in talking about this with us. I think Fluttershy would agree that we want to help you heal. I accept your apology.”
We talked into the night about what happened. It caused new feelings for my mother to come to the surface even I didn’t realize were there; resentment and guilt. It helped a little to find out that these ponies I’ve loved on the show had similar problems, they were just never expressed on TV.
"I...I just can't believe that I had these toward my own mother. She was someone I highly respected, especially given what she was going through, but I don't like feeling like this."
Fluttershy responded, “Maverick, resentment is normal for what you’ve been through, but you have to learn to let it go. Do you really think your mother would want you to hold onto that about her and what was happening?”
My frustration got the better of me, “No, Fluttershy! I keep wanting to let it go, even after all this time since I’ve arrived here. Just when I thought that I've moved on, up it rears its ugly head again!”
“Maverick, please calm down. You will be able to let it go in time. I will be here to help you if you need it, as would everypony else.”
Twilight chimed in, “Fluttershy is right, Maverick. We all have had our personal ‘demons’ to fight in the past, and it was the strength of our friendship that we could deal with it and move on. From what you described, you didn’t have much of that from where you came from, but you do have that here.”
I sighed, “Thanks, Fluttershy, Twilight. It’s just frustrating to feel this way about my own mother.”
Twilight spoke with a sense of experience, “Don’t worry, Maverick. This is something that needs time to heal.”
“I understand. I’m starting to feel better now that I’m talking about it, but I still feel like a failure, mooching off your generosity.”
“But you’re not a failure, Maverick. You’ve come a long way in your flying since you’ve arrived, and you aren’t mooching. You’re helping to make the castle a pleasant place to be in, and for that you are earning your keep.”
We looked at the time and decided we needed to get back to the castle. Twilight and I bid goodnight to Fluttershy, Steve jumped back onto my head, and we headed back. Despite how emotionally draining the day was, each step back felt easier and easier to make. We arrived, bid our goodnights, and I went to my room to turn in. Sleep was a welcome companion tonight, as the nightmares that plagued me were dispelled.
Even though Twilight was kind enough to give me a couple of days to think about what we talked about and get over the worst of my issues (not the least of it was the nightmares), it took a couple of weeks for me to feel like I wasn't being smothered anymore. As I mulled over what was already said and how I was feeling, the pieces slowly started to come together. It also helped me realize that I needed to plan for the future, especially if I didn’t want to be a burden to anypony else. I knew that the others were keeping an eye on me while at the same time, they didn’t interfere with my decisions. That fact alone spoke volumes to me about how they thought of my presence, and how I really didn’t want to die, but rather a last cry for help that was answered.
I felt I had to write something about it in order to move on, so I got a scroll and pen from Spike and got to writing. When I was done, I flew up to a cloud to set it free. Even though somepony flying by might look at me as if I was silly, I went ahead and read what I wrote, “Mom, I know you might not ever see this, but if you do, I have some things that I need to say before I can move on. You were right that I wasn’t happy when you last spoke to me at the hospital, when what I was really feeling was anger, hurt, and resentment. The loss of Sarah, then you getting sick…it was all too much for me. I also really think it should have been me and not my brother to be the last to see you alive.
“It also wasn’t just you I was mad at. I was also mad at myself, for not taking whatever opportunities that presented themselves, talking to others about my feelings, not the least of which was telling you the truth about how I viewed the whole situation. It wasn’t until something special happened, a new world that I wound up in, as well as friends that were never there before who really cared about me. Two…two miracles that I never thought would ever happen in my lifetime – the ability to see in color, and to be able to fly. Who knows where this world and the miracles within will take me, but I only see good things from here on out.
“Well, I can’t live like the person I was before you died and realize that the only way that I can continue with my life and have closure is to let you go. I’ll never think of you as anything but my mom, but maybe that’s what you were trying to tell me, in your own way, by asking me to not come back. I’m through with all the death that seemed to surround me, and ready to work better at having a full life, a life that you would be proud of. I can’t say goodbye, but I will just remember the good memories you left me.”
Twilight had cast a spell on the note that would let it fly up and up after I let it go. I rolled it up, kissed it, and lightly pushed it upward as if it were a floating lantern from one of my favorite movies. As it floated out of sight, I noticed that it was getting dark, so I headed back to the castle, gliding into the sunset and feeling a little lighter than when I left. It was time to move on and enjoy life once again. Who knows what will happen in the future, but what I do know is that it won’t be boring anymore.
Twilight and her friends were waiting for me at the castle. She stepped forward to ask, “Feeling better now?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s a start anyway.”
“Just remember that your friends are here whenever you need it.”
The others nodded and voiced their approval. I gave them a thankful, tearful look before going in to hug them all. I’ve finally started to feel like I belong here, and knew things could only get better from here.