//------------------------------//
// Knowledge 
// Story: Portals: Paradox (Book 2 in the Portals Series) 
// by The Derpy Doctor 
//------------------------------//

	Kevin woke up. He was in the same spot at the same funeral he had attended a week and a half ago. Twilight cried over by the casket. A sky-blue stallion chewed out the two school bullies meters from the wake.
Kevin closed his eyes and cried into the palm his hoof. Fluttershy’s face mirrored back at him. He could see her face so vividly. Her tear falling onto his cheek. He saw it all. His tears flowed quickly. The pain of seeing her cry for him was unbearable. No matter how he thought of it, it hurt. It was the only thing that could save him, though. Stopping thinking about her was even more painful. He knew one thing. Love is the thing that happens when one person finds another and can’t stand to be without her. He opened his eyes for just one moment to look at Twilight. His thoughts cluttered and he couldn’t stand to think of it anymore. He was in love with Fluttershy. As the words filled his mind, he felt even worse. He had even died for her. Why was he here? He should be dead. He should be dead for the one that he loved. Why was it ironic that he had to die to figure out how much he loved his “friend”? Her beautiful face calmed the pain and he tried to focus on that. The tear on her cheek fell from her perfect nose and glided its way down onto his cheek. He took his eyes away from her to blink. Her face can’t take away pain when he blinks. Now she was gone. He’d never see her again.
The tear fell and hit his cheek.
Kevin could feel the tear, now. It rested on his cheek reminding him of how stupid he was not to confess his feelings for her before he had so 	foolishly died on a cloud. The tear was still there. Fluttershy was gone. She had died just as she had before. “Why was I here? Why did I go back, anyway?” his thoughts burnt like a ring of fire circling his head. The tear was still on his cheek. It burnt with… The tear was on his cheek. Again, Kevin felt so stupid. His own tear never moved. He was too in love. Love works in weird ways like that. He knew what he was supposed to do and he knew what mare he loved more than anything in any corner of the galaxy; a mare he loved more than anything in any universe and beyond anything he’d ever felt before. Kevin charged off of his chair and left the funeral: not giving himself any time to pardon himself to anypony he ran over on his way to the door. Kevin’s frown turned to a smile and a tear still stuck to his thick, grinning cheeks.

Twilight turned to Blast.
“Why do we have to be here a second time? As if it weren’t hard the first time?” She weeped.
Blast gave a weak smile.

Kevin turned to the wreckage of the old house and lept for the portal-now visible and flickering with excitement just for him. He stood in it for a few seconds only to find that it was automatically teleporting him, not as a whole.
He dashed in and out of the portal on the other side: in the human world only finding that it never changed in time. It was held at the same 	place at the same universe at the same time. Kevin sat at the entrance in the human world and investigated his surroundings. He was in a graveyard. No one was around. There was one guy passed-out on a tombstone, but he was probably just drunk. He searched for why he was here only to look down and see that his parents’ grave was right here. That was the saddest day of his life. 
“Until earlier today,” He thought to himself.
He heard a small groaning noise coming from the corner of the yard.
The “drunk” person got up and wielded a gun.
As Kevin looked at the man, he realised he was anything but drunk. He had a stern expression, with no signs of a hangover and no dilation in his eyes. Kevin was a helpless pegasus.
Kevin leaned against the portal only to find himself falling headfirst into the pony world. Two figures held each other’s hooves as they themselves parted dimensions. Kevin had no time to question it. He turned and ran for his life. He looked behind himself mid-trot to see if he was following. He wasn’t.
When he turned back, his hooves barely skidded to a stop at the edge of the cloud-home. He was back in Cloudsdale. Kevin’s frown again turned to a smile as he backed away from the cliff and ran flapping his wings at the testing grounds. He got half-way there when he 	remembered he had wings and flew himself there.He realised how weird it might seem what he was going to do as a colt, but he didn’t care. 	He looked gingerly over the scene before him. He started shaking with excitement.

“Passed!” Shouted the harsh voice as Kevin fell backward from dizziness.
The world around him spun and turned. Ripples turned from his very insides. He turned a spasmed on the ground as he felt his stomach burn and his flesh felt as if it were being torn away and burnt.
And then it all vanished.
Fluttershy’s face entered his vision. Everything would be alright while she was here.
A single tear fell from the end of her nose. Kevin felt his own tear being brought forth.
He wanted to tell her it was all okay. That she would be alright. It was his decision, but the words choked in his throat. He blinked just for a 	minute and felt the shocking pain in his chest.
Kevin lay on the side of the test track: dead.

A mysterious figure entered very timely to the scene. He was a white pegasus with blue hair. That approached the body: now rippling into nothing and finally disappearing. The figure approached the mare: now shaking a third and final time.

“Fluttershy?” The figure asked.
“Go away!” She shouted behind her closed adorable hooves.
The figure-Kevin-stooped down and moved her hooves away from her face.
She stared into blank space before her eyes met his.
Kevin was immediately embraced by her shaking arms as she leaned over and hugged him.
“It’s okay, I’m here. I won’t hurt you,” he told her, his voice stooping low.
Fluttershy sniffled.
Kevin pushed her away so that he could say what he was going to say.
“I’m sorry that you saw what you just saw,” he said, “I just gave my life for you. I’m sorry that that’s what happened. But regardless of what 	you just saw, whatever I just gave to save your life, I’d be more than happy to share the rest of my life with you.
Fluttershy cried. She didn’t know exactly what he meant. She wasn’t there for the full story, but she knew it’d be explained later.
She also was absolutely certain that he was the right stallion for her. It was undeniable that they were each other’s special somepony.

Kevin and his new love travelled through the portal together, they held hooves as they forged themselves on through.
Blast was busy there apparently. He was throwing bricks and grass chunks and many, many things at a human that stood before him.
Finally, he called it good enough and turned to see the couple holding hooves together.
“What happened to you guys?” asked the confused unicorn.
Kevin explained what happened and Blast understood every moment of it.
Kevin and Fluttershy smiled at each other as they began their own lives in future Equestria. 
Fluttershy came to remember all about her friends at the current time and was found to be the exact same Fluttershy and at the end of every day, Kevin would get to come home to his new home in Fluttershy’s cottage. Where he would be able to completely relieve the pain of the day by looking into the mare’s soft, blue eyes. He’d forget all of his pains and her to him.