The Elements of Harmony stood at a distance from the massive body of the dead king with the exception of Twilight, not fully understanding why his burst of power had cost him his life. They murmured amongst themselves, attempting in vain to come to some kind of cohesive conclusion.
"Just too much power for one pony to handle?" suggested Rainbow Dash.
"Something about Discord made the magic rebound?" questioned Rarity.
"Ah reckon it be that he self destructed to keep from hurtin' his girls again. He seemed a might grieved when he returned." came the honest answer from the completely honest mare.
Pinkie Pie said nothing as Fluttershy helped the fallen guards to their feet, demonstrating her own element of kindness. One of the guards asked what happened as Fluttershy cleaned a nasty gash on his throat. "We... um... don't really know." she said faintly. He nodded as she wiped away blood and grime from the opening in his neck. The shy pegasus gave a sudden squeak and stopped attending to him. "You... you should be dead. Y-you were dead. How..."
Her friends could almost see the light bulb flick on over her head as a realization hit her. She dropped the hoofkerchief and leaped into the sky towards Ponyville with a speed that made Dash proud. However her friends assumed expressions of astonishment at her sudden abandonment.
Applejack ordered Dash to grab Twilight, who did so. "What in the hay is going on?"
"Fluttershy jus' took of fer' Ponyville. Whatever it was, she gonna need some friends judgin' from ta' look on 'er face."
Twilight looked back hesitantly at Luna who was still holding her distraught sister next to her brother and Cadence who were helping comfort the sun princess. Turning back to her friends, she began to charge up her horn while telling them to all come near and lay a hoof on her. They complied with wondering looks on their faces, and once the final hoof touched her, Twilight let the magic loose with a loud "POP!" and a flash of light.
The five friends reappeared in the train station disconcertingly, except Twilight who rushed over to a booth and ordered tickets for the train to Ponyville. Exchanging the tickets for the appropriate amount of money, the clerk informed her that the train would arrive in about a hour, then would take yet another to get restocked on coal and water to make the trip. Twilight brought the tickets to her friends and distributed them amongst them.
They eyed her questioningly, but only Rarity actually spoke the question they all wondered at: "Why not just teleport us to town?"
"Takes more energy to get us all there and I'm afraid I don't know if I have enough to sustain the spell. Such an event would kill me."
"So that's what happened to Cosmos." stated Pinkie flatly.
"We can't be too sure of that. King Cosmos had unimaginable power, so I doubt there is a spell that would tax him enough to die from it."
"Then why did he die?" asked Pinkie in a rather annoyed tone. "Why did the "all-powerful" king die?"
"I don't know anymore than you do Pinkie."
"Ah'm sure we will fin' out when we fin' Fluttershy. Ah would bet my hin' legs she figgered it out. That why she rushed off so lickety split."
Pinkie sat down on a bench with a huff. Rarity walked over and sat next to her. "Pinkie dear, whatever has gotten you so worked up?"
"If he just happened to die because of the spell then that means he just died, that he didn't have any purpose for dying! That makes his story miserable and sad! He lived forever just to be hated by the one he cared for the most then just died trying to make things better. No happy ending, no trump card, nothing." She trailed off looking defeated, like she had hoped for a much better ending. Rarity recoiled slightly from her outburst, but remained seated next to her friend.
Pinkie broke the silence with more in her tirade, "Sad endings don't end in laughter. How can you be happy when there is no happy ending?" Her mane steadily lost its spunk as she spoke, until it hung limply over her slumped shoulders.
"Are we supposed to just go on with our lives knowing that the Elements of Harmony failed? That we had to force the King to come down and kill himself just for us? What the buck kind of story is that?"
"Is that why you are so miserable? That the Elements didn't defeat Discord?"
"We failed Rarity. We failed and Discord stood there grinning. Laughing at us. Laughing at... me." Her shoulders sagged even more as her friends struggled to formulate a response for her pessimistic statement, but could think of nothing. They saw Pinkamena had returned after Pinkie Pie had only been around a short while. They sat on the bench together, mute and silent with the sinking feeling of their joy as it drowned in their doubts.
After an eternity, the train finally rumbled its way into the station, letting out several ponies on their way home from work and on errands of business. As the tide of passengers reverted from those leaving to those boarding, the five dejected ponies walked on board and sat in their seats as they waited for their arrival in Ponyvile.
Nopony said anything the entire ride home.
The conductor stuck his head into their compartment, informing them of the train’s imminent arrival in Ponyville. True to his word, the train rumbled into the station and slowed to a stop with a loud screech. The five friend stoically rose from their seats and silently shuffled from the station, glum expressions scrawled across their faces. Pinkie’s rhetoric struck them at their core, forcing their hearts to drop from hope to despair with a few mere words.
Their hooves left the pavement of the station for the dirt of the worn roads that criss-crossed the town like a lattice. Soon the worn roads turned to grass as they neared the edge of Ponyville and headed for their missing friend’s home on the edge of the forests. As the small tree-home came into view, the friends stopped dead in their tracks, mouths agape as they struggled to process the scene before them.
When the friends had left, all of Fluttershy’s pets had either died or fled, but before the five mares critters littered the lawn and fields around her home. Birds sang in the trees gaily, ferrets and otters scampered playfully about whilst numerous rabbits grazed and napped under the sun. Even more startling, was the appearance of Fluttershy herself who was feeding her numerous pets. A small and familiar grumpy rabbit trailed in her wake, snatching pellets and bits of food from the animals when Fluttershy wasn’t looking.
It was Rainbow Dash who was the most stunned, she clearly remembered burying the demanding rabbit and comforting the distraught pegasus who owned him. She could still feel the dead weight of his body as she held him, for Fluttershy had refused to so much as touch the little corpse. Yet the same bunny remained, as alive as ever before Dash’s incredulous gaze. Rainbow Dash shot off with a streak of multicolor and landed heavily before Fluttershy as the rest of the troupe ran down the hill to where the two pegasi stood.
“Fluttershy, what in the hay is going on?!” demanded Rainbow impatiently.
The startled mare embraced her with a crushing hug, giving a happy “Squeee!”
“Oh, Rainbow Dash, I got here like an hour ago and found all my animal friends alive! I realized it when I was cleaning the guard’s wounds, that cut in his throat should have killed him. Cosmos fixed everything! Everything-”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down there Sugarcube. Now start from the beginning an’ tell us what’s goin’ on.”
Fluttershy took a deep breath and released Rainbow Dash from her death grip. After a few moments, she resumed her tale. “There is no possible way that guard could have survived those wounds, so the realization hit me: Whatever magic Cosmos used to destroy Discord, he fixed everything that happened when Discord and Nightmare Moon took over. All the grass was alive, the flowers and vegetables weren’t frozen and dead, everypony that had died because of Discord somehow came back to life. He healed them! That’s why he died: He sacrificed his life so that we could live again!”
It was Pinkie who broke the astonished silence, “So Cosmos gave up his life to save everypony else?”
“Yes!”
Pinkie’s mane bounced back to life like a coiled spring as she leaped into Fluttershy and hugged her, the pair bouncing up and down with glee. The remainder of the friends remained fixated to their spots with their jaws hanging. It made so much sense, and it gave them new hope that they had al but abandoned. Pinkie and Fluttershy let go of each other and Pinkie ran over to her friends.
“You know what his calls for? A party!”
As the day wore on, Fluttershy’s hypothesis proved true again and again. The apple stores were completely replenished, The effects of cold and starvation vanished completely from everypony, and the natural equilibrium had been restored. Everything for everypony settled into the norm with the exception of six friends who returned to the palace at Princess Celestia’s request. They arrived at the palace full of joy and happiness at everything that had happened. However their high spirits were dulled somewhat at the sight of Celestia’s downcast face as she sat on her throne next to Luna. She looked at the new arrivals glumly, the pain of Cosmos’ passing written plainly across her face. Even Pinkie Pie sobered somewhat upon seeing Celestia in such a melancholy state.
“Thank you for coming everypony,” Her voice was the looking glass into her soul, pained and monotonous. “We have made plans for Fa-, King Cosmos’ funeral and we would appreciate your being there. Not many even know who he was so having sompony who actually knows who he is will give it some meaning.” The princess’ shoulders visibly sagged under the weight of her words, and her eyes gazed blankly out the window as she finished her announcement.
Twilight approached her and nuzzled her affectionately. “Princes Celestia, we figured out what the king did.”
“I already know Twilight, I’ve seen his powers before, but ...” She broke into hushed sobs, tears starting to flow from her eyes. Luna sidled closer, pulling her grieving sister into an awkward hug. Twilight returned to her friends as Luna told them about the preparations. “In an hour’s time, we will hold the ceremony. Me and my sister would greatly appreciate it if one of you could make a speech about what it is he did. We understand what happened, but it would be better understood if somepony outside of royalty explained it.”
Twilight looked at Fluttershy and nodded to her. Understanding, the pegasus took a tentative step forward, “Umm, I-I would like to give the speech. That is, i-if that’s okay with you.”
Luna nodded and accepted before leading her teary-eyed sister from the throne room.
Celestia’s sun kissed the horizon, the beloved rays of warmth turning an indescribable array of purples and pinks across the cirrus clouds that grazed the topmost layer of the atmosphere. A few dignitaries stood before a small raised platform that was hastily erected in the palace courtyards. Celestia stood behing the platform, trying futilely to keep herself from breaking down into sobs again. She was more aggrieved about the loss than anypony could understand.
She hadn’t seen her father since she was a filly, yet over the decades that followed her mother’s murder there was never once a time when she did not feel his presence. She knew that neither she nor her little sister would have survived had it not been for him. Luna had always born a resentment for him, she had never met him and couldn’t feel him guide her and Celestia. But her older sister had had many a conversation with their father in dreams, visions, mental conversations that made her seem as if she was taking to herself, for eons she had bonded with Cosmos beyond any patriarchal relationship in all of time. His return, and death had shattered Celestia and she felt like a filly, cradling an indigo infant in her legs as she wept over her butchered mother only this time, there was no struggle to survive as well as the care for an almost new-born foal to steel her nerves and dull her emotions. All she had was her grief, and there was nothing to tranquilize its ravenous hunger.
Again she attempted in vain to quell her misery and teary eyes, and she was met with some success, at least this time her eyes weren’t spraying water like geysers. She looked down at her hooves and struggled to force them to move. They gave in slowly, resisting her all the while as she forced one hoof down after the other, placing them on the next stair with a deliberate forcefulness. As her audience came into view, countless years of practice took hold and her leaden legs finally decided to cooperate. She walked to the forefront of the stand and lifted her voice out into the crowd. “My loyal subjects, I thank you for attending this, the funeral for King Cosmos, King and Lord over all the stars and beyond.” A hushed murmur spread throughout the crowd of ponies, several asking who King Cosmos even was.
The princess ignored them and continued on with her speech, “For more eons than I care to count, King Cosmos has been a father to me, the very best of the best. He was there for me when Mother died, when Discord rose to full power, all throughout my rein in Equestria Father has been there to guide me. You all know that Discord arose once again this past month, but yesterday, King Cosmos descended from his throne in the stars and sacrificed himself in order that Discord, and all Discord has done, be destroyed. Peace and harmony has returned to the world, but at a terrible price.” A lump formed in her throat suddenly, hindering her ability to breath properly as she choked down a sudden surge of tears. She struggled to get out: “And now the element of kindness, Fluttershy, will explain for you what occurred yesterday.”
Fluttershy walked onto the dais as Celestia left it, barely containing her tears. At first, the shy pegasus was terrified of the crowd before her, however small it was, yet as she walked to the edge, she knew in her heart what she wanted to say, “King Cosmos ruled without most of us ponies even knowing about him, yet for a really long time he kept things in order, making sure the seasons changed, kept the stars in order...” She continued on, telling about him and everything he had done. She had spent the day with Twilight and Celestia talking about him and who he was. She told them about his return and about how he left, leaving Discord free rein to spread his chaos over the world and about his sacrifice. She finished with the sentence: “We owe him our lives, and we will forever remember his sacrifice.”
The sun had just slipped past the horizon, and Luna delayed the moon so that Cosmos’ starry figure shone clearly in the night sky. Several heads turned upwards to gaze at the new star-painting printed across the void for all to see. After several minutes Luna rose the moon and declared the funeral’s end. Twilight trotted up to Luna and nuzzled her affectionately. Luna returned the sentiment with a small kiss atop the unicorn’s head before heading over to her sister and sitting down next to her. Twilight and her friends mimicked the princess of the night and settled down next to Celestia. The eight ponies gazed at the stars, watching the small, twinkling lights as they illuminated the gorgeous night sky.