Cold. Bitter, numbing cold. The kind that seeps into your bones and makes you shiver until you can shiver no more.
But that’s not the coldest part. The cold sinks even deeper than your bones; when you realize it’s all over. When you realize that all your unfulfilled dreams will remain relics of the past, will sit atop your grave until your memory fades; until your grandchildren have children that never knew you, and you’re part of the infinite, shadowy past.
The past… My memories will die with me when this cold rain ends; I try to remember something she once told me, that pink filly from so long ago.
There’s a happiness that you get from giving happiness to others. It’s the best kind, really. But it’s a cold, lonely happiness, sometimes. You feel it when you realize that you can only give so much. And then you won’t be around anymore, and the people you helped will be gone too. And it always dies. Everyone always dies.
The rain flowed from the sky in a steady torrent, creating rivers on the road and pools in the wayside. It seeped through my mane and onto the ground, joining an endless stream of water, each drop like all the rest.
I had wanted to die in the rain, alone; at least after she died. Before, I had wanted to grow old with Pinkie Pie, live our lives together in the quaint town of Ponyville. We were going to have kids. We were going to be grandparents one day.
But she died, and then I wanted to die alone in the rain. Love is temporary, all lives end in pain. I was getting my wish now. I smiled, just a little, at the way life works.
What will you do after I die, Star? I’m scared. I always liked trying new things, but this is different. You won’t be with me this time. I don’t want to do this alone.
I told her she wouldn't be alone, I kissed her forehead. I saw her big blue eyes fill with tears before she buried her head in my mane. We both knew it wasn't true.
I coughed, a fierce pain racking my lungs, and a few drops of blood trickled down my chin and onto the ground. Even if I was found, and the cold didn't kill me now, than the pneumonia would kill me in a few days tops. It would be best not to be found.
I almost made it back to Ponyville, the place we were supposed to raise a family. I had almost made it to her grave, where the simple stone had her name and the years that had marked her short life. I had made sure they engraved Pinkie Pie instead of Pinkamena Diane Pie. She would have wanted to be remembered that way. There was no epitaph. There was no message we could have engraved on the tombstone that would not have sounded cruel and ironic.
It’s true some days are dark and lonely, and maybe you feel sad, but Pinkie will be there to show you that it isn’t that bad.
She wasn’t here. The night was cold and wet, only a few lights were still on in the houses of Ponyville. I hadn’t made it across the bridge. It had started to rain and I had fallen and was unable to stand. Each breath was an exertion and my lungs wheezed as I drew it in. I was glad Pinkie wasn’t here to see me like this; she wouldn’t have wanted me to die this way.
You’re not so strong, Star. You’ll cry over me and you’ll never let anybody else into your life. You think that it’s strength, that love means forever and that it’s your duty to never get over me; to never let love into your life again. That’s not what I want for you. Don’t do it for you, do it for me. Be happy for me.
I had let her down. I hadn’t been happy, and she had wanted me to stay and comfort her friends, Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and Applejack, and I had let her down in that way too. I left right after the funeral and never returned until now. I knew my time was running out and I had wanted to pay my final respects to her and check on them, make sure they were doing all right. Make sure that, if not me, they were happy. I wanted to see that they had gotten married and had foals of their own. It would make Pinkie happy to know if they did.
I tried to do all that but I only made it to the bridge and fell. The rose I had picked in the outskirts of town was still in my saddlebag. I wanted to place it on her tombstone before I died. I had to know that her friends were happy. But I slipped and fell.
The life I was born with slowly seeped out of my body with the blood that trickled into my lungs with each breath. Each attempt to pull the wet night air into my body was weaker, my breaths were shallower, and I could feel myself dying.
I love you and I always will. You’ll remember that won’t you?
I hadn’t always remembered that. I sat alone in a pub in Baltimare drinking and cursing her name. Fuck her for dying. Fuck her for not being here now when I need her.
Then I was outraged at myself for thinking that and I smashed my bottle on the table and the clear white alcohol dripped off the side. I picked up a piece of the glass and thought about slashing my wrists, and maybe I would have, but the bar-pony came and restrained me, and took the glass, and kicked me out into the dark alley without collecting payment. I stumbled groggily through the cobbled streets, and woke the next morning with the hot and swollen tongue of hangover and a black eye. I could remember neither how many drinks I had ingested nor how I had acquired my contusion.
I stood on the sand the next morning by the docks with a jetty to my right and seagulls flying about, and I felt terrible but I didn't want to kill myself anymore. I walked along the shore and saw crabs scurrying in and out of their holes, driftwood, and a dead jellyfish. I didn't care that it was dead. It might as well be dead, I thought. It wasn't any good to anypony. It wasn't Pinkie Pie. Then I left the harbor’s shore and caught the train to Manehatten.
It was the kind of memory you try to forget, but I didn't let myself forget it. Pinkie would have forgiven me, she would have understood, but I could not forgive myself. I had to make it right. I would die, but not yet. I could take the pain until my task was over.
I pushed myself to my feet with a last bit of energy that is reserved for the conclusion of one’s life; for those last acts that destroy the body in a way that is only bearable, is only possible, for those who are dead anyway.
I walked across the steep arch bridge without heed to the way my muscles burned at the exertion while I trekked up the first half. The moist, cold air filled my lungs and I coughed blood onto the ground again. The rain lessened to a sprinkle.
I walked through shops that were lit still after the shopkeepers were asleep at home. I saw the café in which Pinkie and I used to have lunch before she fell ill. She always ordered a hummus sandwich with cheddar cheese, a Sarsaparilla Root Beer, and a double serving of strawberry ice cream. The waiter that used to serve us was a young mustard stallion and I wondered if he still worked there. I walked around the city hall, which stood fast and tall, unchanged from the day I left. Then I reached Carousal Boutique, home of Rarity. The windows were dark, but I peered through, my eyes accustomed to the dimness, and I saw a stallion lying on the sofa with a blanket and pillow. I got the feeling he didn't usually sleep there.
I walked around to the side and peered in the bedroom window. Rarity was curled up on one side of a king sized bed with a white colt, her first foal. Fluttershy was on the bed next to her with a foal of her own, a pegasus filly, protecting it from the cold with her soft wing.
Fluttershy and Rarity were now middle aged, and both mothers, but they had kept up their weekly get-togethers. Even when it meant kicking Rarity’s husband out to the couch because it was raining, and Fluttershy and her daughter couldn't go home. I smiled and continued through the night.
The steady drizzle was not as cold on my back and not as heavy in my coat. I was happier than I had been since her death, but still it was a sad sort of happiness. Fluttershy and Rarity were living happily, but I would be gone soon. I knew it was coming, but I couldn't feel it so much anymore. The pain had subsided.
I came upon Twilight’s tree home. There was light coming from her window, and I could see her reading a book at her desk by candlelight. A big white stallion was in the bed, facing away from the light of her candle, holding a young purple maned colt. I could tell Twilight’s husband had been a Royal Guard; there was a gold helmet on a shelf and he had the large frame and wings typical of the Princess’ Guards. The colt yawned sleepily and rolled over in his father’s arms.
Part of me wanted to rap on the window and gain her attention, to speak with her before death, which approaches me even now, catches me. I wanted to tell someone of what I’d been through in the years gone by, to vent my pain; but she sat enraptured in a far off world into which I could not find it in myself to intrude. To voice one’s pain is to spread it, and I had not returned to spread pain.
I departed for the Apple family’s home. I had two more ponies to check on.
I’m sad to have to leave my friends. We’re so close and I love them all so much; I know they’ll all miss me, and it saddens me to know how much my death will hurt them. But they’ll move on and they’ll always wish I was still there with them but they’ll be okay. I’m more worried about you. You don’t care about yourself enough to let yourself heal. Don’t give up on love.
“I’m sorry Pinkie.”
Don’t give up on love.
I walked through the gates of Sweet Apple Acres. The rain increased to a downpour once again.
“I don’t have much time left,” I murmured my perception to the cold night. My breathing was becoming ragged and painful again. I prayed silently that I would have time to make it to the hill amidst the apple orchard upon which was the grave of my beloved. But life is so short when compared to the infinity of the potential.
“I’m not so old, I was only five years older than Pinkie,” I mused. Her friends were just having their first foals; Rarity, being the oldest, was around my age. But my sadness was unbecoming of my years; my tale is of a long trek towards death, in which I gained much knowledge, and from knowledge sadness, for what is wisdom but that which deems hopes improbable and love impossible. Pinkie Pie brought happiness into my life for the first time; happiness that was not so ephemeral as to be gone in a moment when fate turned cold. But even she died; even she was nothing but ephemeron of time, a bright flash of felicity in an otherwise insipid eternity. When she died I had nothing left. I gave up.
Don’t give up on love, Star.
Applejack cried into the hay in the barn, fifteen years ago. I looked at her and I knew Pinkie would want me to comfort her, to share happiness like she would have, to give her solace. I couldn’t.
I had followed her when she left the funeral in tears because I knew Pinkie would want me to but I couldn’t. I couldn’t lie to her and say it would be alright. It wouldn’t. Life was pain and I wouldn’t lie to her like others had lied to me.
I turned and left the barn. I didn’t see Applejack again until I returned to Ponyville fifteen years later.
Don’t worry, Star. Just don’t worry and everything will turn out alright.
Pinkie had lied to me.
Twilight was walking, dejectedly, back to her home. She stopped and just stared at the ground for several minutes, lost in her memories, before she continued. I watched her go.
Rarity was sobbing and I could hear her when I passed by her boutique. Fluttershy buried her head in the grass near her cottage by Everfree Forest like she wanted to smother herself and die then and there. I saw their suffering and left.
Rainbow Dash had been a good friend of mine as well as Pinkies. I had been good friends with all of them, but I had forced myself to forget that. I had severed my friendships with them out of my bitterness, my resentment of love. I had been selfish.
Rainbow Dash flew away after the funeral service was finished.
Dashie will take it harder than the others, too. She acts tough but she’s really not so strong; a good part of it is bravado.
Applejack was crying into the hay in the big red barn when I found her, just like she had been fifteen years prior. She heard my approach.
We looked at each other for a minute in silence. Then she ran to me and hugged me.
“Why does it have to be like this?” she asked, her head buried in my mane, tears streaming from her eyes, just like Pinkie Pie, so long ago.
“What happened?” I asked softly, holding her.
She sobbed. Her breaths were shaky and we stood there for a few minutes.
“Dashie’s injured, dying. Maybe already dead.”
The rain pattered loudly on the tin roof above. There was no lightning in the dark sky. Her words chilled me.
“She’s in the hospital but she was hurt real bad,” She looked into my eyes, pleading, “Why does it have to be this way, Star?”
“It won’t be. Everything is going to be alright, okay?” A kind platitude that looks empty on paper, but it meant something to her, that I said it.
“Will you…can you talk to the doctors?” she asked timidly. She was scared to hear what they might say. I nodded, reassuring her.
“I’ll talk to the doctor,” I said, “but what about the others?” She shook her head; she had been unable to face them earlier, unable to be the bearer of such news.
“Come then,” I cooed, “you have to be the one to tell them, I’ll talk with the doctor.”
We walked together, she leaned on me for support, and I was no longer shivering, though it still drizzled on. We did not speak until we arrived at the hospital.
“You’ll talk to Twilight, Rarity, and Fluttershy?”
“Yes. Thank you Star.”
I entered the hospital and she continued on. The clerk took some convincing to let me in to see Rainbow, but I won out in the end. She said the doctor would be with me in a few minutes.
Dash was thinner than I remembered her. Her left shoulder, foreleg, and wing were heavily bandaged. She was under a blanket which came up to her chest, her forelegs and wings protruding out the top. I couldn't see the damage to her lower body. I perceived this in the light from the candle on the bedside table.
I sat in plaintive contemplation for several minutes. Dashie's mane was unkempt, and much less vivid in the tungsten light than I remembered it. She didn't look like the pony who had declared herself to be the town heroine all those years ago. We had all changed.
“She was working on the storm when she was hit by a stray lightning bolt.” The doctor had entered the room quietly, ending my reverie.
“She must have been conscious and trying to fly before she hit the ground, if she had landed at full momentum she would be dead. She gashed her shoulder bad, though. Her left foreleg, wing, and both her back legs are broken.”
“What is the chance she’ll recover?”
“She fell from two-thirds of the way to heaven, broke half the bones in her body, and cut her shoulder deep,” he repeated unnecessarily. “The chance of her recovering is not high. But fatalities from external injuries like hers are usually preceded by a downward spiral, unless she develops infection, but we treated her wounds soon enough to most probably prevent that. And there was surprisingly minimal cranial damage. If her condition remains steady through the night, or she wakes, she will most likely pull through.”
I thanked the doctor for his time and continued to sit in the chair by her bed while the doctor left the room. The candle burned out, allowing the first predawn light to seep through the window. It was dark but just light enough to see Dashie's face. She looked fragile, brittle, vulnerable. She lay, it seemed, and waited for the cold hand of death to close around her heart and give rest to her wings forever.
Into shade from life is cast one
Who gave joy but was given none;
Whose sweetness marked her in the eyes
Of fate, who sees everyone dies.
She couldn't die. Fluttershy, Rarity, Twilight, and Applejack couldn't take the death of another of their friends. Not after Pinkie. It had never been the same since she died, I could see that. The five remaining friends were still close, but some were closer than others and they had lost their sense of oneness. They had lost their identity as a group that would be together forever, just as everyone does when someone close to them dies and they realize that there is no forever. They had been comforting each other, even though they were all equally sad, ever since.
The first rays of yellow light streamed through the clouds and the birds sang to each other in the trees. I had not expected to live to see this sunrise. I was grateful that I did.
But I was not the one that needed to live.
“Come on Dashie. I know you have it in you. You’re strong and you may have lost your purpose when she died, when you couldn't all be together anymore, but she would want you to keep going. She would want you to not let the magic of friendship die with her.”
I gazed at the cyan pegasus and remembered all the good times we had together. I remembered when Pinkie was still alive, and we would go for picnics on one of the hilltops in Sweet Apple Acres. We would spend all day playing games and frolicking in the sunshine until evening. They had befriended me quickly, although nopony expected Pinkie to be the first to meet their special-somepony. That hill was now her grave.
“Part of me wonders if you knew it was coming. A strange Pinkie-sense you had never felt before, perhaps.” I smiled sadly, and continued aloud:
“I miss those days. But I know my part in it now. I know my part and it’s just about to come to a close.”
Dashie stirred. She slowly tried to roll over, but she didn't have enough energy. She yawned sleepily.
Applejack would surely bring Fluttershy and Rarity hereto. I knew I shouldn't be here when they arrived. They needn't be saddened with my passing so shortly after my return.
Dash blinked several times, letting her eyes slowly focus and adjust to the dim light. She looked at me with no surprise in her expression, as if she had expected me to be here.
“It’s cold out," Rainbow Dash said, "it’s been cold a lot lately." She wasn’t angry, nor sorrowful anymore, just accepting.
“I’m glad you’re back, Star.”
I started to tear up despite my former composure. I was scared, because I didn't know what it would feel like to die, but mostly because I didn't want to make them suffer anymore. I didn't want her to suffer anymore.
“I won’t be back for long. This is it for me, Dashie. I’m done.” My voice shook.
She placed her hoof on mine and looked into my eyes. She had beautiful, rose colored eyes, and she wasn't angry at me for being about to die. She understood.
I looked away and took a deep breath. I wiped my eyes with a hoof and looked at her again. My voice regained its strength.
“My story is almost over. But you, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, and Twilight, you have your lives ahead of you still. Don’t dwell on the past. Pinkie wouldn't want you to.”
I didn't want her to. I didn't need to say anything more, though. She could see it in my eyes.
Mine was a good story, in the end, I thought. And, finally, they would be able to move on. They would be together again.
We sat in silence for a few minutes before Dash spoke.
“Come lie next to me. It’s cold in here.”
I was scared if lay down I wouldn't be able to get back up, but I walked around the bed and lay beside her. She wrapped her wing around me and it wasn't cold anymore. I felt complete, knowing she was there with me, and that she would be alright. And it was warm now.
I hugged her tight, wanting to heal her wounds from the past, wanting to shelter her from the future, wanting to protect her from even my own death. I couldn't let her cry again, but all I could do was hug her, and hope that she wouldn't cry when I died. We both consoled each other with our presence.
“I love you Dashie. Don’t forget it.”
A cardinal chirped sweetly outside in the chilly air, perched on the branch of a cherry tree, sparkling drops of dew on the leaves and berries.
I awoke and the sun was higher in the sky. I didn't know for how long I slept, but it couldn't have been more than an hour because Applejack and the others weren't there and I could tell they hadn't been. I softly removed myself from the cyan pegasus’ embrace. I kissed her on the forehead and left the room without looking back.
There’s a happiness that you get from giving happiness to others. It’s the best kind, really. But it’s a cold, lonely happiness, sometimes. You feel it when you realize that you can only give so much. And then you won’t be around anymore.
I felt it now. I told the nurse at the front desk that Dashie had been awake last night, but that she was sleeping now.
“She’ll be alright now,” I stated.
“I’m glad to hear that. The doctor will check on her once he gets in. Feel to sign the guestbook on your way out.”
I stopped on the guestbook’s podium and thought for a moment. I signed ‘Pinkie Pie.’ I knew her signature well. It clicked. I got it now, life finally made sense and I understood why mine turned out the way it did. Sometimes we just need to settle for living our story, and stop trying to make it into something it’s not.
I walked out into the morning and felt a rush as the cool air nipped my skin and the sun’s rays warmed my bones. It was a beautiful day.
I was standing in a small room above Sugarcube Corner. It was a long time ago. Particles of dust were floating lazily in the air, shimmering, lit up by the morning rays that streamed through the window. They weren't good for Pinkie’s lungs, I mused, but it didn't matter anymore. The doctor had said anytime between a day and a week, but both Pinkie and I knew it would be this evening. She wouldn't survive the cold night.
There were several potted plants on the window sill. Pinkie said they kept her company when I couldn't be there. There was a small barrel cactus, some succulents, and a rose. There was only one flower amidst the few buds on the plant. The single rose caught the morning light.
“It doesn't hurt so much, really. I don’t want to be on pain killers when I go Star. I want to be me, all of me. Pain is part of life and I don’t have much longer to live.”
My only response was to leave the rose I had been inspecting and walk to her bedside. I lay down and put my foreleg around her and rested my head on her shoulder for some time before I sat up and replied.
“I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. It’s your life and… But I don’t want you to be hurting.”
“And it’s my death.” She completed my unfinished statement. She had already told me I needed to face it before, this was just a reminder.
“Why does it have to be this way?” I said uselessly.
I got up and walked back to the window and looked out. There were fillies and colts playing in the park outside. They didn't know what it’s like to stand by the bed of someone you love and watch them die. But they would someday. It was a cruel world.
“Everypony has to play both parts,” she knew exactly what was on my mind, like she always did, “You love somebody and you make them happy and then you die and they’re sad. But they overcome it. They still have your love and then they give it to someone else and then they die. I wish I could just give and give and give but you always have to take something to be able to give…”
She frowned; she wanted to word it better but couldn't figure out how.
“Someday you’ll understand.”
I shook my head angrily.
“I don’t want to understand! I want you to live!” I shouted.
“From your lips to Celestia’s ears.”
“Screw Celestia.”
I head-butted the wall in my frustration. The rose pot fell and cracked on the floor, earth and clay shards scattered on the wood floor.
My anger was gone immediately and I felt terrible.
“I’m so sorry Pinkie. I can’t believe I've been so selfish. You don’t even have much time left and here I am breaking your stuff that I gave you… I’m wasting your time that you could be spending with your friends. I don’t even deserve to know you. I’ll leave right after I clean that up.”
“No!” she pleaded, “Just come over here and lie down. I don’t want to you to go.”
I lay down next to her and she hugged me. I stayed there for a few hours, and we didn’t talk. There was nothing left to say. I cried and she held me, for a little while, though it should have been the other way around.
I left Sugarcube Corner when Rarity arrived. The other four came soon after and Pinkie died that night with them.
I walked past the city hall and through the town square. Fillies and colts played jump-rope and tag in the park, while their parents watched and chatted about the latest gossip and how well their foals were doing in school.
I stopped at a café for a coffee and asked the pony that worked there for a pencil and paper and thanked him when he produced a quill, inkwell, and sheaf of parchment. I think he could tell I wasn't writing a grocery list.
I wrote about my time with Pinkie Pie, how we spent days exploring the hills beyond Sweet Apple Acres, how she told me that someday we’d explore the whole world. I wrote how she got sick with lung cancer. I wrote, though it was difficult, about my last moments with her. And I wrote how I returned to Ponyville years later on the last night of my life.
I finished the story and set out towards Sweet Apple Acres. The morning sun shone on the barn and I went inside and left the sheaf parchment on the haystack for Applejack.
I meandered through the hills and trees that were becoming orange with the leaves of fall. Finally I came to a tall hill deep in the orchard with a single apple tree on top. It was hard to climb; my lungs burned with the effort and the ascension took me several minutes. I coughed blood three times on the way up.
“I’m here Pinkie. I didn't think I’d make it but I’m here now,” I spoke to the gray stone beneath the apple tree.
Smaller hills covered in apple trees with their bright red fruit and orange leaves surrounded the hill I stood on. Light dappled through the leaves with orange light. Birds sang a sad song that was sometimes happy, and it wasn't so cold out anymore.
“I traveled all over Equestria, Pinkie. I saw it all, but I wish I could have seen it with you. I really do.”
She always understood twice what I said.
“I knew my time was coming though. I think you did too, before you got sick. And you gave me happiness but it took me a while to know how to use it. How to help others with it. And I knew my time was coming so I was going back to Ponyville because I wanted to die here, with you. But I think some part of me was also coming back because they needed me. She needed me, most. Maybe you whispered it into my ear when I was asleep and only part of me heard. Maybe you were guiding me from wherever it is you are now.”
I set the rose I picked the day before in front of her headstone. It was wilted, but so was I, and it was all I had.
“I love you Pinkie. But I didn’t give up on love. I loved you always when I was travelling, more than you would have wanted me to, and then when she needed me I was there for her. I love Dashie. I’m not worried about you not understanding, though. I know you do.”
I waited a moment to see if more would come. But I was never one to create great lines when I needed them. My gaze lingered on the vista around me, the rose by her grave, and finally her name on the stone. Then I lay down in the grass beside Pinkie’s grave and closed my eyes.