I've thought about life a lot, I have.
And Death I'm beginning to fear.
I know not where he waits for me,
but I know that he is near.
Three of my friends have gone away,
but the one I love is still here.
And though she may be far away,
and doesn't need me now,
I know she'll have a moment of doubt.
I cannot explain how.
A thousand years, I'll wait for her.
I have to time this right.
For if I should wake too late,
she'll fail to see my light.
I know a way that legend knows.
To sleep a thousand years, I toast.
I drink the vial and lay down to rest,
to awaken when you need me most.
------
I held the vial up to the light. Inside the fragile glass was a transparent liquid that I knew contained an answer. My friends were dying, one by one. So young they all were... It was never meant to be their times. But Death is an apathetic thing, he is. He cares not if you're the most adorable little bunny, or the fiercest dragon. If you aren't an alicorn, he'll come for you eventually. He came for Rainbow... For Applejack... For Rarity... At least Twilight was safe... Yes. She was safe. I wasn't, and Pinkie wasn't. But Twilight was. That's why I was still okay.
I had a dream last night. A rather peculiar one that I remember vividly every detail as though it were an actual event that happened just moments ago. I saw Twilight return to her library alone at the peak of midnight. I could see the sadness in her eyes. She teleported inside, looking around. I saw her staring at a knife with a sort of longing that I had often shot her way... It made me nearly burst into tears right then. I wanted so badly to scream to her. To call out and make her put it down...
I relived all of my friends' deaths through their eyes... I killed seventeen griffons before I was shot by a crossbow as Rainbow... I felt the pain of childbirth, and the unfathomable love of mother to child through Applejack's eyes... I suffered through the pain of the most untreatable cancer as Rarity... But I was able to take the pain. It was nothing compared to watching Twilight contemplate killing herself. No. Those were bee stings to being roasted by a dragon.
I looked back at the vial, swirling it slowly. I had gone to great lengths to learn how to brew it, and it took me several tries to get it right. But I finally had it. My way of traveling time. My way to be there with Twilight, to the horrid, bitter end. Or at least... That was the plan...
The Millennium Slumber potion. The single most powerful non-lethal poison one could brew. It literally put you to sleep for a thousand years with one vial. One, teenie-tiny little vial, and I could wake up when Twilight had lost all hope, and be there for her... I knew I was being selfish, but I knew that if I didn't do this, her heart would be unable to handle the heartbreak for very long.
I took one final glance at the vial, uncorking it. I snuffed the last candle in my home. Knowing that Pinkie would likely come visit tomorrow, I shed one tear at the pain that I knew I'd cause her. I tilted the vial back, ingesting the poison that would set me to sleep for one thousand years. With my will at my bedside, and the candles out, I let the poison do its work. I lost sensation from my wings and hooves first, the numbness creeping towards my pounding heart. I wiped my tear with a numb hoof, doing my best to appear as though I had died in my sleep, rather than by poison.
As the numbness reached my heart, I closed my eyes. I let my mind open up to a thousand years of dreaming that everything was fine. That my friends were alive and well. That Twilight and I were together... With my last breath for the millenium, I whispered into the night, "I'll meet you once again, someday," in the stray hopes that she could hear my prayer and understand why I did this.
To me, it was the only way to be there when she needed me most.