//------------------------------// // She's Leaving Home [Slice of Life, Sad?] // Story: Half-Hour Horses // by HoofAndQuill //------------------------------// (The prompt: Every story has an ending. But every ending is just another story’s beginning.) (Call this a prediction, though I doubt it'll be pitched this way in the show proper. Time somewhere in the AJ section.) Sugarcube Corner looked mostly the same. It was mostly the same. From the outside you couldn't really tell anything had happened, and from the inside, where the customers stayed anyway, it looked the same as always. Maybe a little cleaner, with less remnants of streamers taped to the walls, but it mostly looked the same. But it wasn't. Pinkie Pie looked at her old room. It was empty. The walls were still brightly painted and the sunlight shone in through the windows, but it was empty. No streamers, no balloons, her party cannon was gone already, Gummy was over with Fluttershy, and... everything was just so... empty. Pinkie stood there in the little beam of sunlight from the window, and looked at her empty room. It was weird enough that she was doing this anyway. She moved out of her family's house when she found her talent for partying, and then she was super lucky enough to find another family with the Cakes. But now she was moving out of here too, and... she didn't want to do it again, even if she was pretty sure she'd find a new family again, anyway. Pinkie took one last look around the room, and turned to go down the stairs. In the kitchen she found Mr. and Mrs. Cake, both looking a little teary-eyed when they spotted her with her last saddlebags full of stuff. She hugged them both, even though they hugged just a little too tightly and it threatened to make her smile slip. But they'd already all said their goodbyes, and it was just a nice, fake little "See you later!" and Pinkie Pie was gone. -- "But Rarity, it's Carousel Boutique! You can't give it to anypony else!" Sweetie Belle followed behind her sister as Rarity levitated certain small possessions and design books into her already overstuffed saddlebags. Rarity sighed, and her horn sparked in frustration until she managed to fit the last set of designs into her bag. "Sweetie Belle, darling, Miss Pommel is a very capable designer, I'm quite certain she will do very well here." "But Carousel Boutique is yours! You're the best designer in Equestria! Why do you have to go?" Sweetie Belle knew she was whining, and knew that Rarity's patience was limited for that sort of thing, but she couldn't help it. She sat down on the floor as her big sister finalized a few small details with the dumb, cream-colored earth pony mare that was taking over the shop. She didn't listen. She didn't want to listen. She wanted things to be like they were before, and she wanted her big sister to stay here in Carousel Boutique and do all the things Rarity liked doing. But things change. They trotted outside together, and suddenly Rarity was just that extra half-step farther ahead of Sweetie Belle than Sweetie wanted her big sister to be, and Sweetie Belle threw herself forward to hug Rarity's hoof. Rarity opened her eyes wide in surprise, but then sat down on the road and hugged her crying little sister close. "Sweetie Belle, you will always be my little sister, and nothing will ever change that. Even leaving..." Rarity looked up at the building she'd just left. It looked the same, or at least mostly the same. But it wasn't hers, anymore. She'd built the boutique as a business, from the ground up, and now it wasn't hers anymore. Rarity looked up at the building for a long second, and then turned to hug her sister again. "Leaving Carousel Boutique is not the end of the world, Sweetie. Now, let's go find Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. I'm quite certain the three of you will feel better together." -- Brave little fillies didn't cry. Or at least that seemed like something they shouldn't do, to Scootaloo. But it was kind of tempting sometimes, like when Rainbow Dash's cloud house was being demolished. It was always sort of a big block in the weather patterns, and most towns on the ground didn't allow cloud homes anyway. But Rainbow Dash had been weather team captain for a while, and so her house had stayed there, until now. Rainbow Dash had elected to tear it down herself, which made a weird kind of sense to Scootaloo. Of course, Scootaloo couldn't help even if she wanted to, so she sat on the warm grass on the hilltop below the house, and watched Rainbow kick away the puffy white walls and blow away the remnant cloud stuff. Scootaloo had a lot of Rainbow's old things, and the rest of them were already gone. Rainbow Dash said she liked to travel light, and that she couldn't take most of the things she wanted to bring with her. She looked up at the rapidly dwindling cloud home, and sighed. Even if she wasn't really, she felt an awful lot like she was losing a sister. -- Fluttershy finished putting the final touches on her old cottage. It was a sort of bittersweet feeling, tearing down the old doors and windows so that animals could move in and out as they wanted. The chicken coop was already gone, as was all the fencing and all that sort of thing. Her animal friends were all running around and exploring the new freedom of movement. It would take a little adjustment, leaving this house. She had lived here basically the entirety of her adult life, but... there was always a time for good things to end, and this was the time. It was near the Everfree forest, and the animals always had the food they needed. The less capable animals, like the chickens, were already at Sweet Apple Acres, so there wasn't anything to worry about. "Okay, Gummy, it's time to go." Fluttershy smiled to the little alligator resting on her back and holding on to her mane with his gums, and turned her back on the animals' new home. -- Applejack's vision swam and stars flashed in her eyes a bit as Big Macintosh pulled her into a hug tighter than any hug had any right to be. After a moment she pushed on his chest, and he released her, having the decency to look a little apologetic. Applejack smiled at him. "Come on now, big brother. It ain't goin' to be that different. I'll be back for applebuckin' season and it'll be just like old times." "Nope." That word, and the tone behind it, left no doubt that they both understood something was changing. Applejack sighed. "I'm real sorry, y'all, but this is how it's got t' be. I'll come back an' see you when I can." Her brother, her little sister, and Granny Smith all wrapped their forelegs around her and each other in the last family hug they'd have for a while. Applejack would deny it later, but while she was here, there was no point in saying there weren't any tears. But sometimes tears are okay, and sometimes things have to change. For only the second time in her life, Applejack turned and left Sweet Apple Acres, without any intention of moving back in. -- The six mares, formerly the Elements of Harmony, stood together on a hill on the outskirts of Ponyville. Each of them looked a bit wistful, some of them were even a touch misty-eyed. But even Rainbow Dash knew that teasing over this was out of the question at the moment. Princess Twilight looked back toward Ponyville, and her friends saw her eyes linger for a long moment on the big, distinctive tree that housed Golden Oak Library. Twilight hesitated, and then smiled and turned toward the Forest. "Well girls, are we ready?" Five mares nodded, and one dragon, sitting on Twilight's back. Twilight took a deep breath. "I know it's hard to leave like this, but after everything that's happened, losing the Elements of Harmony, finding ourselves over these past few months, and... well, the rainbow thing... I think a new start is what we all need." Applejack nodded, and nopony mentioned the tears in the mare's eyes at leaving her home. "Y' sure about namin' this place-" "The Rainbow Kingdom!" Rainbow Dash found some energy from somewhere, and laughed loudly. Just that bit of sound seemed to lighten the expressions on everypony's face. "I know it's not really about me, it's about the, you know, new powers or whatever. But it sounds so awesome!" The low mood broken for the moment, Pinkie Pie laughed with Rainbow Dash, and the six mares started down the hill and into the Everfree Forest. Deep within stood their new home, the newly restored Rainbow Castle, and they'd all have reason to celebrate again soon.