“MIG!? What are you doing walking around!? You should be resting, cuz!” I rush over to aid my crippled cousin down the remaining steps. I walk him towards one of the couches in the living room and sit him down, his face still grimacing from the abdominal pain.
“Be careful man! Those wounds haven’t fully closed yet! One harsh movement and you’re bleeding a river again!” I scold him a bit, but he just chuckles and gives me his usual sly grin.
“Eh, I’ll be alright, cuz. You know us - we can tough through anything that comes our way!” He gallantly holds up his fists with a giant grin. That bastard was in a chippy mood as ever – how could I tell him the news about Fluttershy?
“So, uh, can I get some food or something? I’m STARVING!” He asked no one in particular, looking around the room at everyone, still in our casual/formal attire for Fluttershy’s funeral, some of us holding back the tears we just shed, myself included.
We all just fumbled with what to do, until AJ finally stepped up and took control.
“Ah’ll get ya somthin’ to eat! Whaddya have, Mig?” she asks in a very kind manner while kneeling down in front of him.
“Do we have any chicken noodle soup cans left? Cause I’ve been craving that for a while!” His face beaming with happiness, the guy couldn’t have been in a happier state. I think the fact he survived his first major injury and sees us all here has put him in this good mood – though he was always a very optimistic guy to begin with.
“Sure thing, sugercube. Ah’ll get right on it.” AJ pats his knees smiling, and gets up towards the kitchen to start his soup.
“Hey, guys, really quick, what’s with all the blood up there in the room I was in? Someone else get hurt?”
And like that we all froze. I could see a few of the girls, mainly Twilight, begin to choke up again hard, and tried their damn best to hold back from breaking down again. Even AJ stopped dead in her tracks upon hearing that.
“Um, Mig, I really don’t know how to say it, and there is no easy way of saying it…” I tried to think of the best way to put it to Mig. But there just wasn’t an easy way to put it, it just had to be said.
“Matt, what isn’t easy to say?” His face began to look a little worried. Everyone was looking at us, looking to see what will unfold as I tell him the devastating news that Fluttershy, the girl all us real humans knew he had a crush for, was brutally murdered by a bunch of psychos.
“While you were out, a group of thugs came to the house and tried to take it over,”
“OH SHIZNIT. They just come barging in wanting it for themselves?” He might have thought that was the bad news, if only it was.
“Yeah, barging in, taking me captive. But luckily for Mr. Knifey over there,” I gesture towards Beans, his face solid as a rock, expressionless. “he got the guy and got me free. A firefight ensued, and we managed to kill them all off. We managed to get a decent amount of supplies from them too.”
“Oh sounds pretty crazy, cuz! But was that it? Honestly you scare me some-“
“That’s not everything.” I interrupted. I didn’t want him to get a false sense of security about this. He really began to look worried now. “Once we thought we killed them all off, we heard a scream from your room. We run up to see there was one man left – and he held Fluttershy at gunpoint.”
At these words his eyes grew big, and he began looking around the room for Fluttershy. He was beginning to put the pieces together. His eyes began to cloud, and you could see water forming in his eyes. It tore me apart to have to tell him the news.
“She was watching over you the entire time, and that bastard he, he…” It was so hard to finish that sentence.
“Matt, no. Please, Matt, no. Tell me this is a dream. Tell me this is a horrible, horrible nightmare.” Tears began streaming down his face as he grabbed a hold of my shoulders. His voice was choking up where he was beginning to become hard to understand. “Don’t tell me she’s dead! Please, Matt, for the love of God, please tell me she’s not dead!” He was shaking me as I just looked down.
Finally, I managed to just point to her grave in the backyard. I couldn’t even bare to look at him. I could feel him use me as a support to get up, and he slowly walked away towards the back. You could hear his quiet sobbing, and others trying to support him along his walk to the back. I looked up to see Beans go to help him walk and he just pushes him away – not averting his gaze upon the freshly filled gravesite.
Mig reaches Fluttershy’s grave, and just stands and looks at it for about a minute. Then you see him collapse to his knees, and bawl like you haven’t heard anyone bawl before. But he wasn’t the only one, soon others started crying again. Twilight let her head fall on AJ, who was wiping away tears of her own. Xoch buried her head in Pancho’s shoulder as she wept, and he was being the strong man for her, one of the few in the group. I see RD also fall down to her butt and she buries her head in her hands, hunched over and crying. Pinkie fell on the couch and wept a waterfall, you could see her tears fall from the couch onto the floor – we were all a wreck.
I walked out there to him, closing the glass sliding door behind me – it was only me and him, no one else.
“Mig, I’m so sorry you had to find out this way. But I know what you’re going through right now, losing the ones you truly love and care about, it couldn’t be a harder thing to deal with…” I was at a loss for words. All I could really do was kneel next to him, and comfort him as best I could.
“What… What happened to the guy who… who-“
“We took care of him, thoroughly. Him and all those other bastards are piled in the front - we were prepared to burn ‘em.”
“Well, at least, at least he’s dead.” Mig said with a cold, raspy voice. He not once was averting his gaze from her grave.
“Yeah, at least there’s that.” I rubbed his back with my hand, patting him as well. I just didn’t know what to do; I didn’t really have anyone to comfort me when I lost my family, so I didn’t know what he wanted to hear or what needed to be said or anything, really.
“Matt, could you just leave me here for a bit? I want to be alone with Fluttershy for a little while.” He pleaded me while still looking down.
“Yeah, Cuz, no problem. I’ll let you be for a bit.” I smile and pat him on the back, and get up to walk inside.
“How’s he taking it?” Shadow asked me, looking at me with his bloodshot eyes, filled with water and pain.
“Not too well, he wanted to be left alone for a bit. So let’s just let him be for now; AJ, mind working on that soup for him? That and maybe some crackers? He still needs to eat.” I ask her and she nods, turning towards the kitchen to get to work.
She eventually brought the food out to him, but he didn’t touch it. I had AJ leave the crackers but bring the soup back in, I didn’t want it to go to waste.
But as time went by, he just stayed still, on his knees, looking at Fluttershy’s grave. It turned into hours, he was just kneeling there, not moving. We all took turns going out there one by one and checking up on him, but each person was only there for a minute or so before he shoo’d them away.
The sun was finally beginning to set, and he had not budged all day. He had hardly eaten. I decided to finally go out and try to get him back in. He needed to keep his strength up and eat and rest, but most importantly, he has to try to move on and stay strong.
I head outside and tell everyone to just let us be, and make sure not to watch us – I wanted this to be between me and him, cousin to cousin, between family.
I sat down next to him, and he is just staring at the grave. Few tears running down his face, I think he ran his tears dry by this point. But I just sat there next to him, looking out towards out beautiful landscape view, waiting for one of us to speak up, and he finally does.
“Did you… did you say she was watching over me?” His voice was raspy, he sounded like one of those people who had been screaming their whole lives and had a real raspy voice, but much more depressed.
“Yeah, she was. She watched over you and Rarity feverously, it was truly something to behold. She not once left your guys’ side – particularly yours.” I calmly and quietly told him, hoping these words would help at least a little bit, knowing she wasn’t all angry at him or anything.
“After our fight at the market – wait, did you –“
“Yeah, I heard about it. She gave you a good scolding I hear.”
“Yeah, over killing these zombies. She thought they were still live people who were sick, and that you were an ass, but I covered for you, Cuz. Cause, well, you’re my family. But it sucked to go against her, it really did. So when she snapped at me, I was crushed.” I didn’t know about the exact details, so hearing that he stood up for me and the group’s tactics against her, was quite the surprise.
“I think, that’s what hurts the most about losing Fluttershy…” Mig began to say while playing with some of the loose dirt by his hands. “… Is that I never got a chance to make amends with her. Sure, she might have looked over me like you said, but I never knew that. I never got to say sorry for being a dick to her, and I wanted us to be on good terms.” He finally began to wipe away his tears, he was looking like a mess.
“I just wanted to be able to talk to her again about that situation, and I wanted to tell her I had feelings for her. But, but now, I won’t get that chance.” He was choking up again, and he was shaking. All this stress was taking its toll on his body. “I never got to walk up to her, say ‘Fluttershy, I love you’ and kiss her. I know, I’m weird for wanting that, but I won’t hide it. She was damn awesome and I liked her, I wanted to be around her more often. And now, I can’t. No matter how badly I want to.”
“I know. Trust me I know you liked her, and I know you wanted to tell her. I couldn’t imagine a greater pain, Cuz. But don’t worry, you aren’t the only one who’s got a thing for their fav pony-girl-I don’t even know.” I tried to console Mig, and figured one thing was to try to lighten the mood, perhaps get a chuckle or something.
“What do you mean?” he asked me quizzically, finally looking to me instead of Fluttershy’s grave.
“I got a thing for Rainbow Dash. It’s hard to admit, and even harder to accept, but I do. Shit, I just admitted I got a thing for her. What the hell?” I outwardly think to him.
“Glad to know I’m not the only one, and glad to see you’re moving on from your past.” Mig referencing my past girlfriend who, well, you remember.
“I think she would want me to move on, and fight and be strong. She always said I was an emotionally strong person, and I think she’d want me to try and keep that up - much how I think Fluttershy would want the same out of you.” I wrap my arm around his shoulder, we were both just looking out at the large plain that welcomed us in our backyard.
“She’d want you to keep fighting, to keep surviving. She wouldn’t want you to roll over and quit, she’d want you to keep living and to move forward. You and I both know she cared about us all, and she put others first. And I think that she, being the selfless girl she was, would want us to move on and prosper in our lives.”
I think those words are what got to him, what he needed to hear.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” He sniffled and wiped away some more tears. “I know she wouldn’t want us to die out here.” He tried to reason with himself, and I just let him get through this thought process of his. “She’d want us to live, love, laugh, and be friends and make new ones. Not hate everyone and not do anything with our lives, but the opposite.” A small grin appeared on his face, if only for a split second, but one managed to manifest itself on him. That was all I needed to know that he would get through this.
“C’mon Cuz, let’s get you that soup you wanted.” I got up and held out my hands for him to grab on to. He looked up at me, then back to Fluttershy ,then back to me, until finally lifting his hands up letting me grab a hold of him. I gently lifted him up and helped him inside.
“Hey, can I still have that soup?” he asked me as we walked in.
“Yeah, sure, you can have that soup still.” I said with a slight chuckle, trying to be the positive one for him this time.
“Guys! Let’s get this guy some soup!”