Silence.
Mirror sat in a frozen moment of time, staring at the place where her only friend had lain just...
“Just a moment ago? Or an eternity?” She shook her head. None of it made much sense, but even then, it did make a sort of sense.
All around Mirror, the room where Rose had lain was still. If she breathed, or if her heart beat, Mirror didn’t know. She could breathe, but her heart stayed still, silent, and cold.
“But I’m not cold-hearted.” She pressed a hoof to her chest, feeling nothing as she spoke to the stillness. “I loved you, Rose; I hated you for what you showed me, but I loved you for what it meant. I am me.” But who am I?
The photographs on the shelf gave no answer, and her tumultuous thoughts were too garbled and fleeting for her to decide. Shaking her head, Mirror reached a hoof to stroke the frame of the photo showing Rose with her family. Raspberry, Post, Swift, and Lucky all sitting around the table with a first birthday cake laid out in front of them. Her hoof covered the one pony in the frame she didn’t want to see.
I’m not you. Not anymore.
“You have such a beautiful family, Rose.” Eyes closed, Mirror perked her ears and imagined what it must be like on the other side. Color pulsed in her mind and, for a moment only, it was as though she were there. “I can almost hear how happy they are to get you back.”
When Mirror opened her eyes again, flowers were everywhere: flowers in vases, flowers in baskets, and smaller bouquets of flowers with cards signed by many ponies that she knew from memories. They said: “Get well soon!” and “We’re thinking of you, Rose!” The rest, she imagined, had similar things written on them.
“Oh, Rose. I’m so glad that everypony is there for you!”
She turned, blinking away happy tears to look at the bed again. Three red roses sat on the bedside table, a splotch of color in the dark. She blinked, and they were gone. “But... they were there.” It didn’t matter. “Maybe I dreamed they were there... or hoped, or... something. But I’m glad that you’re not alone anymore.” I wish I could be there with you.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the traitorous thought. “You don’t belong, Mirror. You—”
“She is real! She matters! Mirror is special to me.” The voice, Rose’s voice, shattered the silence and jolted Mirror out of her self-pity.
“Rose?” The photos were all gone, as were the flowers, and a new trough was forming in the bed.
“Was it a dream? Did I imagine it all?”
Buildings stood empty, stalls untended, and the familiar silence was broken only by the flat sound of her hooves clumping on the cobblestones leading through town. It felt like a dream town should.
Mirror stopped in front of Rose’s stall, empty, and stared at the place she could have sworn a flagpole had once stood. Am I dreaming? Am I really Pinkie, and I’ll wake up, and none of this will exist? I won’t exist?
“No!” Mirror stamped her hoof and turned away to scream: “I’m real!” at the vast, uncaring world.
Her yell vanished into the silence. She said I was real...
“But... have I ever dreamed before?” It felt like an odd question since her memories held plenty of dreams, both good and bad. “Were they my dreams?” Do I deserve to have dreams? Or only this—
It wasn’t a nightmare. It just... was.
None of the buildings she passed held any answers in their windows or doors, only empty silence and the signs of life frozen between one moment and the next. The one building that might have answered her questions, Sugarcube Corner, she only stared at from a distance. It tempted her with answers, taunted her with possibilities, but it held no more terror for her.
Because I am real.
Mirror turned away from temptation, and towards the home of her friend. All around her, the world moved on. Step after step, tiny change after tiny change, it left her behind.
“And why shouldn’t it?” She took one last look at the town she remembered so vividly from another pony’s life. “It was never my home.”
“I’m so glad you’re home, Rose.” The broom in the corner of the front porch had moved, and new straws were stuck into the gap that had once been there. Mirror stopped at the front gate and closed her eyes. The memories of another pink pony swept over her, filling in the grey and emptiness with life and color. Green grass and delicately pink flagstones led up to the front door.
When she opened her eyes again, an afterimage of the color lingered on the house, and sank deeper into the grass and stone. Even through the windows and into the house, where Pinkie had never gone, Mirror could see colors. Faint, to be sure—faint enough that she backed up and looked at other houses up and down the street.
No other house had that same glow—only Rose’s.
“Why?”
The question hung unanswered in the silence.
Step after step, Mirror walked along the path leading behind the house, following the brightest colors. Nameless joy filled her, and the grass grew brighter. Almost, she could smell it under her hooves. But it remained still and frozen.
“Am I dreaming?” Not even the colorful lawn, or the cracked, light cream slats of the house held an answer. The world remained silent, but instead of a cold silence—telling her it didn’t care—the quiet solitude welcomed her.
She belonged. There, in Rose’s garden, she was loved.
Flowers bloomed everywhere. Color and light sprang from every leaf and every petal. Even the morning dew, frozen on the leaves, scattered back light that had no source. Warmth spread throughout her the longer she wandered the short pathways.
“Why? How?” Around and around she went, circling the plot in the center were a large rose bush spread its leaves and opened its blossoms. Every step she took opened them a little more, until she stopped.
“Rose, it’s beautiful. I... how? How am I seeing all of this in color?”
As if in answer, a glimmer of pink at her hooves drew her attention.
At the base of the bush sat a raised, rounded stone. Instead of fine, polished stone, it was rough and held no hint of a reflection, as though it had been freshly hewn from some boulder.
Engraved into it was a message.
“Mirror, I will always remember.”
The words came to her in Rose’s voice, repeated a dozen times, echoing as she brushed a hoof over the words. Her name... the one she’d chosen for herself, the one that had been meant as an insult to herself, had instead been turned into a monument.
“My name meant something else to you, didn’t it? You tried to tell me that my name didn’t mean what I thought. You said that I meant something to you. That I was my own pony. That you were my friend.” Tears pattered down onto the stone, darkening it, making a difference in the pink quartzite. “You meant it.”
Mirror lay down in the garden of color and wrapped a foreleg around the stone.
“Thank you.”
One last time, Mirror closed her eyes, smiling, and laid her head down.
For the first time, she fell asleep.
For the first time, she dreamed.
Rose pondered the dark, wet stain on the quartzite memorial.
“Mirror, I will always remember.” She smiled as she brushed a hoof against the words and gathered her thoughts. Memories of Mirror, of their time together, of the trials they had faced, and of their bonds of friendship swept through her mind and joined with the fresh memories of her family and her friends.
Her magic pulsed into the garden, flowing around and amidst the roots and stems of her flowers, carrying those happy thoughts to sink into the earth.
“I will always remember,” she repeated with a smile and closed eyes, feeling the joyous harmony echoed back to her. “Please remember me, too.”
Almost, she heard a voice echo back the same words, and then the wind shifted and carried the echo away. Rose listened as the wind sighed through her mane, then shook her head. Her family was waiting for her.
She looked back and whispered into the fading wind.
“Smile for me.”