It was the seventh time that night that her purple orbs had opened, and Twilight shifted in her bed, unable to go to sleep after the event that transpired a week ago. The purple mare leaned her legs over the side of her bed, and pushed herself onto her hooves. She turned her head towards the window to her right, and stared outside. A beautiful night sky opened up to her field of vision, numerous stars and constellations brightening up what was otherwise a terrible night. Luna had surely outdone herself this time with such a sight. It was a shame that Luna's attempts to brighten up the mood of Ponyville would eventually be in vain, since no pony would be able to smile their way out of this one.
Twilight moved down her stairs towards the main library, and her horn emitted a purple light, as she levitated one of the books off of the shelves and placed it onto a nearby table. The binding of the book was starting to wear thin, and if Spike didn't clean the house every now and again, one would be able to tell that this was the only book that Twilight had picked up. For such a studious mare, who loved to fill up her library with new and interesting books whenever she had the chance, the fact that she was only focusing on one subject was certainly noteworthy. Bloodshot eyes stared down at the book as Twilight opened it, the pages sparkling with the aesthetic of magic while she turned to a specific subject for the seventh time. Her eyes scanned the pages, a sigh coming from her lips as she realized, for the seventh time, that she was unable to change what had happened. This spell was the closest to ameliorating what occurred, but it was beyond her reach. Princess Celestia was unable to perform this spell either, since it required the Elements of Harmony.
Twilight closed the book and started to walk in a circular motion around the room, feeling the familiar grooves in the flooring that were created by routine, a routine that started up a week ago. “I could have stopped it. We all could have prevented this from happening.” she thought, while her hooves made small “clop” noises on the wooden floor. “There was something that we could have done... anything that we could have done.” Twilight stopped for a few moments, as her thoughts circled around the event. She tried to think of what she had hypothesized before, all of the guesses and bubbles that she drew on her chalkboard. Twilight wanted to know what happened, why it happened, and why it had to happen. Tears filled up Twilight's eyes and she lowered her head, followed by sitting back down on the floor. She looked at the floor as her tears formed a small puddle, and she opened her mouth to let out an audible sob.
“No one knows why.” Spike responded, and Twilight turned towards the staircase to see the purple and green dragon, staring down at her with a defeated disposition. His shoulders were slumped, his eyes drooping, and he took a long time descending those stairs down to comfort his friend.
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Another tree took two feet to the middle of its bark, as the apples fell into a previously placed cart. The cart was completely empty, save for the current amount of apples that were catapulted out of their homes and soon into the mouths of Ponyville's citizens. Applejack looked away from the tree as leaves started to float down in her previous field of vision, indicating that there were no more apples to fall, and she yawned silently before slipping her head through the cart's circle handle and pulling it towards the next tree. “She's gone.” Applejack told herself, as she set the cart close to the next tree, and moved out of the handle to buck the apples off. “Nothing is going to change it, Princess Celestia told us this.”
Applejack kicked the tree with both of her hooves, looking backwards at the tree with an expression of anger, as if it was the Flim Flam brothers or another rival company that wanted to drive her out of business. She would rather have that then what happened. Her hooves beat against the tree, forming indents on the bark. One, two, three strikes against the tree with both of her hooves, as Applejack's eyes started to water. All of the apples had fallen off and landed neatly in the cart, while her hooves continued the assault. Soon enough the indent became noticeable, but one more large kick had split the tree in the middle, as it fell backwards and leaned against one of the other trees. Applejack sobbed quietly and placed her front hoof over her face, wiping the tears that collected while she moved into the cart and pulled it to the next tree. She could fix that mistake later, a tree was replaceable.
Big Macintosh let out a sigh as he looked out of his room window, seeing the light coming off of Applejack's lantern. He already knew what she was doing. She had started doing it seven days ago. Applebucking at night, while the day was spent in Ponyville, helping out the citizens and preparing the city for tomorrow. He wanted to tell her that she should probably get some sleep, but he couldn't convince his sister. He had a hard enough time convincing her to take a break during the last Applebuck Season, he doubted that he could get her to stop. Especially since those apples were her only form of escapism right now. Every pony needed one of those, due to what happened. Big Mac's head lowered as he looked over to his bed, where Smarty Pants was sleeping comfortably. He would be the decider over what would happen. Would Big Mac go outside, console his sister, and bring her inside to get some rest? Or would he leave her to her own vices, and go back to bed with hopes that Applejack would sleep soon? Applejack managed to sleep that night, collapsed at an apple tree that was recently watered with her tears.
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Cerulean orbs that belonged to the shy pony never stopped watering, no matter how much Angel and the other animals tried to console her. Fluttershy was laying on her couch, the same spot that she kept herself when the newspaper wrote devastating things about her. However if it was just the newspaper that got to her, then at least she would be able to “get over it” as Rainbow Dash would say. But this was the seventh day of crying. Fluttershy's eyes grew puffy and swollen from the abuse, and it looked like her station wasn't going to change for a while. Her cottage was surrounded with animals, every single one she helped surrounding her to try and make her feel better. From Angel to the bear she massaged, they were all inside and silent. The last five days were full of suggestions and verbal consolation to try and rise Fluttershy off of her couch, but none of them were successful.
Angel sat next to the mare as she stopped crying, only because her eyes were becoming too swollen and the pain was too much for her to bare. She sobbed and sniffed a few times, feeling her nasal passages refusing to accept any air, and she had to breathe through her mouth to keep the oxygen circulating. She looked down at the rabbit, and Angel smiled lightly to try and change Fluttershy's mood, but the mare leaned back against the couch, placing her hoof over her swollen eyes while her eyes watered some more. Eventually she would cry herself to sleep, and none of the animals were comfortable with leaving this emotionally torn mare by herself. She still had the event to attend in twelve hours, so even a small amount of sleep would significantly help her appearance and mood. Although the mare didn't want to attend the event, she wouldn't forgive herself if she didn't.
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The beautiful color of the daytime sky, that previously illuminated Ponyville was reflected off of a certain mare's eyes, along with the magical energy that circled the room. Fabrics and gemstones circling throughout the room as they were put together, contrasts and complements calculated in much the same way that Twilight would explain the constellations. However, Rarity's mind wasn't working as quickly as her usual design theories, and from the looks of her room, she had probably contracted the same feelings as her friends. Her room was uncharacteristically dirty, and not in the fashion that she would usually leave her living quarters.
Her dresser, where many of her sewing and creation tools were held, were all mixed and matched with one another. Tools lay diagonal, horizontal, and everywhere in between, as if someone had dumped the dresser contents out and scooped it back up haphazardly with a dust pan. Silk cloth in every color of the rainbow was circling the perimeter of the room, in a montage of colors that reminded one of the colorful ice cream that Sugarcube Corner used to sell during the summers. Blue and red silk were packed on top of each other, wrinkles creasing through the fabric due to the intentional (but not desired) ignorance of the mare in the room.
There was just simply more things on the mind of the white mare then the tidiness of her room. She was able to find her tools and her fabric. If she really needed to, she could always smooth out the creases in the cloth with a few tricks that she learned throughout the years of her profession. Her work was maimed, it took longer to create a dress then usual, and her ideas would usually become immaterial the moment that Rarity levitated her cloth into the air. She had succumbed to using other people's ideas and designs for dresses, when some pony would come into her shop and ask for a commissioned dress. The originality dried up, leaving the mare terrified of the future, but at the same time, wishing that she could go back to the past. Rarity looked down at the floor, her horn blending in with the darkness and there was a combined noise of cloth and tools falling to the ground. “A lady is allowed to cry... if no one sees.” she told herself, as two tears slipped out of her closed eyes and formed a small puddle on the linoleum.
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The house in the clouds, a spacious and noticeable dwelling that any pony would be able to pinpoint on a map if they were asked. The house of the fastest flier in all of Equestria, the living arrangement that the coolest mare decided on, succumbed to the scourge of sloth and depression, two of the things that Rainbow Dash was usually in short supply of when it came to her house. Her house was usually immaculate, as shown by the previously pure white clouds, opaque but beautiful works of art. Rainbow had seen a few colts create paintings of her house, and viewed such art creations when she previously attended the Gala last year.
Unless your name was John Coltstable, one would have no desire to paint such a living arrangement as it is now. The whole structure of the house had turned gray, every single cloud that formed the beautiful dwelling had merged with a pile of cumulonimbus clouds, and ended up creating a storm house. Rain fell on the outside of the house, water droplets leaking down the outside and down onto the grass below. Despite the weather throughout Equestria, any pony that walked around a one block radius of Rainbow Dash's house was able to hear the sporadic thunder clap that came from her house.
The rainbow river that remained along the left side of her house continued its cycle, however the colors in the water had grown pale. The liquid started to overflow from the excessive amounts of rain, and the pale colors dripped along the edges of the house, and flooded the entrance to Rainbow's interior. Inside of the house, past the clouds that were carefully formed into livable furniture, Rainbow Dash was laying on her bed, staring up at the gray clouds and the consistent sounds that came from the rain drops battering against her house and the ground below. Her magenta eyes didn't close, she felt like she was in a trance, completely shocked by the facts that were revealed to her seven days ago. It simply wasn't possible, she wasn't going to accept it. She had to accept it, there were no smoke and mirrors.
Rainbow Dash climbed off of her bed, and walked over to the doorway of her room. Her eyes stared outside at the rain that pattered against the clouds. She extended her wings, flapped them a few times to make sure that they wouldn't cramp and lock up on her, and she dashed out of her house, her destination not confirmed. She just wanted to fly, even though she might circle around the city for the next few hours. She had to tire herself out, or else she wouldn't go to sleep, and her thoughts and tears would keep her awake. Her eyes watered as the wind beat against her mane and face, as her wings pushed her farther away from Ponyville, until she turned around in midair and continued. Around the city she flew, thoughts of the last seven days puncturing through her mind, and reminding her exactly why she was unable to sleep for so long, without turning into self induced narcolepsy due to this shortage.
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Rainbow Dash flew for three hours, circling around the town until she was about to collapse, and her wings brought her back to her home. She ignored the rain that dampened her mane as she moved back to her bed. She collapsed onto her bedsheets, her wings ached from the exertion that she put herself through. Her right hoof moved over her eyes, but it didn't stop the tears as they fell once more onto her cloud created blanket. She sobbed a few times, her wings relaxing and falling onto the clouds while Rainbow Dash cried for the first time since last week. It was all bottled up, hidden behind the demeanor that she was too cool and awesome to cry. Although there were a few problems wrong with such a portrayal, everyone was too depressed to notice Rainbow Dash trying to act tough. Rainbow knew herself that she wasn't tough enough to endure this kind of emotional trauma. No one was. The whole city was plagued by this event, one that was going to be commemorated tomorrow in exactly eight hours. Pinkamena Diane Pie, had passed away.